An Architectural Approach to Ensuring Consistency in Hierarchical Execution

TL;DR

This paper addresses the challenge of maintaining logical consistency in hierarchical agent systems by analyzing the issues caused by persistent assumptions and proposing a novel solution called Dynamic Hierarchical Justification, validated through empirical analysis.

Contribution

It introduces Dynamic Hierarchical Justification, a new method to ensure consistency in hierarchical reasoning systems, supported by empirical evaluation.

Findings

Dynamic Hierarchical Justification improves consistency maintenance.

Persistent assumptions can cause logical conflicts in hierarchies.

The proposed solution is effective based on empirical results.

Abstract

Hierarchical task decomposition is a method used in many agent systems to organize agent knowledge. This work shows how the combination of a hierarchy and persistent assertions of knowledge can lead to difficulty in maintaining logical consistency in asserted knowledge. We explore the problematic consequences of persistent assumptions in the reasoning process and introduce novel potential solutions. Having implemented one of the possible solutions, Dynamic Hierarchical Justification, its effectiveness is demonstrated with an empirical analysis.