AUTONOMOUS AGENTS AS EMBODIED AI

This paper is primarily concerned with answering two questions: What a re necessary elements of embodied architectures? How are we to proceed in a science of embodied systems? Autonomous agents, more specificall y cognitive agents, are offered as the appropriate objects of study fo r embodied AI. The necessary elements of the architectures of these ag ents are then those of embodied Al as well. A concrete proposal is pre sented as to how to proceed with such a study. This proposal includes a synergistic parallel employment of an engineering approach and a sci entific approach. It also supports the exploration of design space and of niche space. A general architecture for a cognitive agent is outli ned and discussed.