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@misc{cogprints3950, volume = {15}, number = {1}, month = {February}, author = {Dr. Michael L. Anderson and Prof. Donald R. Perlis}, title = {Logic, self-awareness and self-improvement: The metacognitive loop and the problem of brittleness}, journal = {Journal of Logic and Computation}, pages = {21--40}, year = {2005}, keywords = {Metareasoning, time, non-monotonic reasoning, active logic, brittleness, autonomous agents}, url = {http://cogprints.org/3950/}, abstract = {This essay describes a general approach to building perturbation-tolerant autonomous systems, based on the conviction that artificial agents should be able notice when something is amiss, assess the anomaly, and guide a solution into place. We call this basic strategy of self-guided learning the metacognitive loop; it involves the system monitoring, reasoning about, and, when necessary, altering its own decision-making components. In this essay, we (a) argue that equipping agents with a metacognitive loop can help to overcome the brittleness problem, (b) detail the metacognitive loop and its relation to our ongoing work on time-sensitive commonsense reasoning, (c) describe specific, implemented systems whose perturbation tolerance was improved by adding a metacognitive loop, and (d) outline both short-term and long-term research agendas.} }