MPAI has developed the notion of Perceptible and Agentive AI (PAAI), a machine or set of machines performing some or all of the following functions:

  1. Perceiving the physical or virtual environment that may include:
    1. Inanimate physical or virtual objects.
    2. Humans or PAAIs.
  2. Accessing information sources (Processes)
  3. Depending on the source:
    1. Representing, describing, and interpreting data from inanimate or virtual objects.
    2. Representing, describing, and interpreting messages from humans.
    3. Receiving messages from PAAIs.
  4. Reasoning about data and messages.
  5. Setting goals based on data received and messages exchanged:
    1. Deciding on messages for humans and/or PAAIs.
    2. Actuating decisions.
    3. Storing/retrieving experiences.
    4. Adjusting goals.
  6. Making plans to reach a goal:
    1. Decomposing tasks into subtasks and organising them in sequences.
    2. Considering the environment and available resources.
    3. Involving processes, humans, and PAAIs.
    4. Iterating to improve results.
  7. Executing the plan:
    1. May change the plan because of changed conditions.
  8. Learning while experiencing.

Therefore, a PAAI uses the following elementary functionalities:

Representation To represent captured AV information as Data.
Description To represent Data as Descriptors, e.g., AV Scene Descriptors.
Interpretation To represent Descriptors as Interpretations, e.g., speech recognition.
Conclusion To represent the result of reasoning about Interpretations as Conclusions.
Communication To exchange Data with another PAAI.
Goal setting To establish the goals to be reached.
Planning To reach a goal through structured plans.
Decision To decide how to implement a Conclusion.
Explanation To explain the path that led to a Decision.
Action To actuate a Decision.
Storage/Retrieval To store/retrieve Experiences (relevant data from any of the stages above).
Learning To improve the performance of a stage while experiencing it.

A PAAI Experience is defined as the relevant set of data produced by a PAAI during its operation.

Figure 1 depicts the flow of data in its different forms across the stages of a PAAI.

Figure 1 – Graphical representation of a Perceptible and Agentive AI (PAAI)