The Frame Problem (Ai)
The frame problem in artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the challenge of using first-order logic to express facts about a system or environment, particularly in relation to representing the effects of actions. It was first identified by John McCarthy and Patrick J. Hayes in their 1969 article, ‘Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence’.
Areas of application
- planning and decision-making
- natural language processing
- expert systems
- computer vision
- robotics
Example
Consider an AI system that is tasked with planning a route for a self-driving car. The system needs to reason about the current state of the car and the environment around it, as well as the effects of different actions it could take (such as turning or stopping). The frame problem arises when the system tries to represent these complex relationships using first-order logic, as the number of possible actions and their consequences can quickly become too large to handle.