Situated Reasoning and Rational Behaviour

During the last few years, researchers in Arti cial Intelligence have become increasingly concerned with the problem of designing architectures for intelligent systems that are required to operate in complex dynamic environments. The potential applications are both diverse and economically important|for example, the management of air tra c and other transport services; the control of telecommunications, power, and computer networks; transaction management in banks and insurance companies; the monitoring and control of industrial processes; on-line fault diagnosis and malfunction handling; the supervision and control of manufacturing operations; the provision and monitoring of medical care; and the control of industrial robots. In this paper, we discuss some of the issues that arise in the design of intelligent systems that must operate e ectively given the time and information constraints imposed by their environment.