Exhibit 01Reflex Agent

Vacuum World

Two rooms, one robot, dirt that keeps coming back. The textbook reflex agent is two if-statements. Can a decision model behave like one?

World
State
Decision
Action
New state
Dirt appears
Room ADIRTYRoom BDIRTY
dirt seed 101
Same dirt, two agents
Cleanliness = share of room-steps clean (AIMA's performance measure)
Classic rulesJev
Steps00
Cleanliness
Moves00
Waits00
Wasted actions00

Jev decision

idle
Press Step to let the model act once, or Auto run to watch it keep the rooms clean.
CLEAN
MOVE RIGHT
WAIT
Lesson · Reflex
Observe → Decide → Act
The reflex agent is the simplest thing in the textbook: perceive, match a rule, act. Here it is two if-statements, and it keeps the rooms mostly clean for free. The comparison is not like for like: the textbook rule sees only the room it is in, while Jev is shown both rooms. That is why Jev can wait when both rooms are clean while the rule keeps shuttling, and a three-line rule given the same view of both rooms behaves the same way. Both agents face the same seeded dirt. What a decision model adds here is not better cleaning but a small, inspectable choice with a probability attached, doing work a rule already does.