Qualification problem
Encyclopedia
In philosophy
and AI
(especially, knowledge based systems), the qualification problem is concerned with the impossibility of listing all the precondition
s required for a real-world action to have its intended effect. It might be posed as how to deal with the things that prevent me from achieving my intended result. It is strongly connected to, and opposite the ramification side
of, the frame problem
. John McCarthy gives the following motivating example, in which it is impossible to enumerate all the circumstances that may prevent a rowboat from performing its ordinary function:
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
(especially, knowledge based systems), the qualification problem is concerned with the impossibility of listing all the precondition
Precondition
In computer programming, a precondition is a condition or predicate that must always be true just prior to the execution of some section of code or before an operation in a formal specification....
s required for a real-world action to have its intended effect. It might be posed as how to deal with the things that prevent me from achieving my intended result. It is strongly connected to, and opposite the ramification side
Ramification problem
In philosophy and artificial intelligence , the ramification problem is concerned with indirect consequences of an action. It might be posed as how to represent what happens implicitly due to an action or to control secondary and tertiary effects within the same period...
of, the frame problem
Frame problem
In artificial intelligence, the frame problem was initially formulated as the problem of expressing a dynamical domain in logic without explicitly specifying which conditions are not affected by an action. John McCarthy and Patrick J. Hayes defined this problem in their 1969 article, Some...
. John McCarthy gives the following motivating example, in which it is impossible to enumerate all the circumstances that may prevent a rowboat from performing its ordinary function:
- "[T]he successful use of a boat to cross a river requires, if the boat is a rowboat, that the oars and rowlocks be present and unbroken, and that they fit each other. Many other qualifications can be added, making the rules for using a rowboat almost impossible to apply, and yet anyone will still be able to think of additional requirements not yet stated."
External links
- John McCarthy "Introduction: The Qualification Problem"