directionwhether

Directionwhether is a neologism used in discussions of navigation and decision-making to describe a two-part directive: the choice of a spatial direction and the contingent decision of whether to proceed under given conditions. It is proposed as a compact way to express situations where movement and permission to move are decided together rather than in isolation.

Etymology and scope: the term is a portmanteau of direction and whether. It emerged in speculative design, AI, and robotics literature in the 2020s as a way to capture the coupling of directional guidance with a predicate evaluation. The concept is not tied to a single formal theory but is used to highlight integrated decision rules that govern both where to go and whether to go there.

Conceptual framework: directionwhether involves two components that are often considered together: direction selection (for example, left, right, forward) and a boolean condition indicating whether to proceed (proceed/halt) under current state information and goals. Implementations can be rule-based, probabilistic, or learned through reinforcement learning, with the emphasis on how sensor data, goals, and safety or feasibility constraints influence both the trajectory and the decision to undertake it.

Applications and use: directionwhether has been discussed in the contexts of autonomous vehicles, drone navigation, robotic operation, and human–machine interfaces where users specify a goal and the system must determine both a movement plan and whether execution is advisable at a given moment. It also appears in theoretical debates about integrated control policies and language-inspired representations of action.

Criticism and alternatives: some critics view directionwhether as a vague umbrella term, while proponents see it as a useful shorthand for joint directional and conditional decision policies. Related concepts include conditional routing, guarded motion, and move-or-halt policy.