---
title: "Reflection and Action Under Scarce Resources: Theoretical Principles and Empirical Study"
authors:
  - "Eric Horvitz"
  - "Gregory F. Cooper"
  - "David Heckerman"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1989/180"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1989/0180.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Eleventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 1989
pages: "1121-1126"
track: "Commonsense Reasoning"
keywords:
---

# Reflection and Action Under Scarce Resources: Theoretical Principles and Empirical Study

Eric Horvitz, Gregory F. Cooper, David Heckerman

*Proceedings of the Eleventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 1121-1126.

## Abstract

We define and exercise the expected value of computation as a fundamental component of reflection about alternative inference strategies. We present a portion of Protos research focused on the interlacing of reflection and action under scarce resources, and discuss how the techniques have been applied in a high-stakes medical domain. The work centers on endowing a computational agent with the ability to harness incomplete characterizations of problemsolving performance to control the amount of effort applied to a problem or subproblem, before taking action in the world or turning to another problem . We explore the use of the techniques in controlling decision-theoretic inference itself, and pose the approach as a model of rationality under scarce resources.