Dimensions of Complexity

(21th-February-2020)

• Here we present nine dimensions: modularity, representation scheme, planning horizon, sensing uncertainty, effect uncertainty, preference, number of agents, learning, and computational limits. These dimensions give a coarse division of the design space of intelligent agents. There are many other design choices that must be made to build an intelligent agent.

• Modularity is the extent to which a system can be decomposed into interacting modules that can be understood separately.

In the modularity dimension, an agent's structure is one of the following:

• flat: there is no organizational structure;

• modular: the system is decomposed into interacting modules that can be understood on their own; or

• hierarchical: the system is modular, and the modules themselves are decomposed into interacting modules, each of which are hierarchical systems, and this recursion grounds out into simple components.