The Middle Ages of Planning

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The Middle Agesof Planning

• Craig Knoblock
• University of Southern California

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The Dark Ages

• Life in Planning during the Dark Ages was very
  hard. Very few people could read or write PDDL
  and nobody expected conditions to improve. The
  only hope for most people during the Dark Ages
  was their strong belief in Planning, and the hope
  that life with UCPOP would be better than life
  without it.
• - Drew McDermott

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We Are Now in the Middle Ages!

• Planning Algorithms
• Planning Techniques
• Planning Heuristics

• Planning Applications
• Plan execution
• Mixed-initiative planning
• Problem representation
• Problem reformulation
• Domain-specific planning

30 papers
6 papers
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Why are We Still in the Middle Ages?

1. This is what everyone else publishes
2. It is easier to write and evaluate these papers
3. Reviewers are often hard on papers outside the
   mainstream
4. Most people are not trying to determine how their
   work applies to real problems
5. We accept too many papers by Rao!

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How do We Get to the Age of Enlightenment

• View planning more broadly
• Encourage papers from the workshops
• Give awards for best application and best
  application papers
• Continue the knowledge engineering competition
• Give Rao the wrong paper deadline