Towards Active Logic Programming

TL;DR

This paper introduces DALI, a logic programming language designed for defining agents with reactive and proactive capabilities, maintaining close syntax to Horn clauses while integrating event handling and internal state awareness.

Contribution

The paper presents DALI, a novel logic programming language that seamlessly incorporates agent features like reactivity, proactivity, and event management within a Horn-clause framework.

Findings

DALI enables agents to respond to external and internal events.

Agents can perform actions and exhibit rational reactive behavior.

Extended resolution supports complex query answering with event handling.

Abstract

In this paper we present the new logic programming language DALI, aimed at defining agents and agent systems. A main design objective for DALI has been that of introducing in a declarative fashion all the essential features, while keeping the language as close as possible to the syntax and semantics of the plain Horn--clause language. Special atoms and rules have been introduced, for representing: external events, to which the agent is able to respond (reactivity); actions (reactivity and proactivity); internal events (previous conclusions which can trigger further activity); past and present events (to be aware of what has happened). An extended resolution is provided, so that a DALI agent is able to answer queries like in the plain Horn--clause language, but is also able to cope with the different kinds of events, and exhibit a (rational) reactive and proactive behaviour.