The Frame Problem From An Engineering Perspective

Since its introduction in 1969, the phrase "frame problem" has been attributed various interpretations. Most researchers in the field of Artificial Intelligence, define the frame problem as the problem of finding an effective representation for reasoning about change. Logicians use the phrase to refer to a much less general, technical problem within logic, whereas philosophers tend to interpret the phrase as the more general problem of determining (ir)relevance. All in all, this discrepancy has led to considerable confusion about the meaning of the phrase. We contend that most of this confusion can be avoided, if the original (robotics) context of the frame problem is adhered to. We present an engineering view on the frame problem that allows us to strip the frame problem from associated problem notions like qualification and ramification. The problem that remains is intimately related to the knowledge acquisition bottleneck in knowledge engineering. 1 The Frame Problem Literature spe..