Frame problem
"To most AI researchers, the frame problem is the challenge of representing the effects of action in logic without having to represent expicitly a large number of intuitively obvious non-effects. To many philosophers, the AI researchers' frame problem is suggestive of a wider epistemological issue, namely whether it is possible, in principle, to limit the scope of the reasoning required to derive the consequences of an action." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2004).
Patrick
Wilson (1993, p. 379) finds that the problem in designing efficient infurmation
systems has "disturbing similarities to what is known in
artificial intelligence as the Frame Problem - disturbing because the Frame Problem is
thought by many to be insoluble. Just what the Frame Problem is, is itself a
matter of controversy (see Haugeland, 1987), and it is probably best to see it
as not one but a cluster or nest of problems involving the representation of
change. The problem in one version concerns the apparant impossibility of
specifying general rules for contigent change in knowledge representations: that
is, rules that would specify, given a representation of the world, and given a
change in some feature of the representation, what other features must change or
at least be reconsidered. This is the general problem of discovering what are
the implications or consequences of a change in one feature of a representation
of the world for all the rest of the representation. The problem can be taken
either as a normative one or as a straightforward engineering problem. Fodor
thinks that "The Frame problem and the problem of formalizing our intuitions
about inductive relevance are, in every important respect, the same thing"
(Fodor, 1987, p. 245), and this is certainly not simply an engineering problem.
But the practical engineering attempt to design a machine that will simulate
ordinary human intelligence faces parallel, and daunting, difficulties".
Literature:
Fodor, J. A. (1987). Modules, frames, fridgeons, sleeping dogs, and the
music of the spheres. IN: Z. W. Pylyshyn (ed.): The Robot's dilemma: The Frame
problem in artificial intelligence. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1987).
Haugeland, J. (1987). An overview of the frame problem. IN: Z. W. Pylyshyn (ed.): The Robot's dilemma: The Frame problem in artificial intelligence. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2004). The Frame Problem. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frame-problem/
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.(2005). Frame problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_problem
Wilson, P. (1993). Communication Efficiency in Research and Development. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 44(7), 376-382.
Birger Hjørland
Last edited: 22-01-2006