The Middle Ages of Planning Craig Knoblock University of Southern California

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

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 6 papers 30 papers

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!

How do We Get to the Age of Enlightenment 1. View planning more broadly 2. Encourage papers from the workshops 3. Give awards for best application and best application papers 4. Continue the knowledge engineering competition 5. Give Rao the wrong paper deadline