Rationality

• The rational way to choose the best action is to maximize expected utility.
• People disagree about this, but that's the standard argument, and lots of utility theory, Psychology and Economics is based around it.
• It does quite well, especially for markets (like stock markets).
• Do people always behave this way.
• Even with all of these assumptions (particularly about utility functions) people don't always behave rationally.
• However, if you assume they do, or if your agent does, it can be quite effective.