论文标题
将系统解释为解决POMDP：朝着对代理的正式理解的一步
Interpreting systems as solving POMDPs: a step towards a formal understanding of agency
论文作者
论文摘要
在什么情况下，可以说系统具有信念和目标，以及这种与代理机构相关的特征与其身体状态有何关系？最近的工作提出了一个解释图的概念，该函数将系统状态映射到代表其对外部世界的信念的概率分布。这样的地图并非完全任意，因为它归因于系统的信念必须以与贝叶斯定理一致的方式随着时间的流逝而发展，因此系统的动力学限制了其可能的解释。在这里，我们以这种方法为基础，不仅在信念和行动方面提出了解释概念。为此，我们利用现有的部分可观察到的马尔可夫过程（POMDP）的理论：我们说，如果它不仅承认了描述其对POMDP隐藏状态的信念，而且根据其信仰状态采取最佳行动，可以将系统解释为POMDP的解决方案。然后，代理是一个系统，将该系统解释为POMDP解决方案。尽管POMDP并不是实现目标含义的唯一可能的表述，但这仍然代表了朝着更一般的形式定义成为代理的含义的一步。
Under what circumstances can a system be said to have beliefs and goals, and how do such agency-related features relate to its physical state? Recent work has proposed a notion of interpretation map, a function that maps the state of a system to a probability distribution representing its beliefs about an external world. Such a map is not completely arbitrary, as the beliefs it attributes to the system must evolve over time in a manner that is consistent with Bayes' theorem, and consequently the dynamics of a system constrain its possible interpretations. Here we build on this approach, proposing a notion of interpretation not just in terms of beliefs but in terms of goals and actions. To do this we make use of the existing theory of partially observable Markov processes (POMDPs): we say that a system can be interpreted as a solution to a POMDP if it not only admits an interpretation map describing its beliefs about the hidden state of a POMDP but also takes actions that are optimal according to its belief state. An agent is then a system together with an interpretation of this system as a POMDP solution. Although POMDPs are not the only possible formulation of what it means to have a goal, this nevertheless represents a step towards a more general formal definition of what it means for a system to be an agent.
