Refinement of Adaptivity by Reflection

Adaptivity is a system´s ability to respond flexibly to dynamically changing needs. Adaptivity to human needs, wishes and desires-even to those that might be unconsciously present-is a particularly ambitious task. A digital system which is expected to behave adaptively has to learn about the needs and desires to which it shall adapt. Advanced adaptivity requires learning on the system´s side. Under realistic application conditions, information about a human user available to a computerized system usually is highly incomplete. Therefore, the system´s learning process is unavoidably error-prone and the knowledge on which the system´s adaptive behavior has to rely is hypothetical by nature. Adaptive system behavior is improved by the system´s ability to reflect on the reliability of its current hypothetical knowledge.