Building off the recent work on the semantics of problem, we suggest a more general account that encompasses problems of all agents, human or nonhuman, individual or communal. Situation X is a problem for agent A, iff situation X is at odds with the agent’s goal G and removing the discrepancy between X and G presents some difficulty for agent A. In addition, for agent A to actually have a problem, they must also be in such situation X. In contrast, agent A recognizes that situation X is a problem for them iff agent A represents, correctly or incorrectly, that situation X is at odds with their goal G, agent A represents, correctly or incorrectly, that removing the discrepancy between X and G presents some difficulty, and agent A represents, correctly or incorrectly, that they are in situation X. Several conclusions follow from these definitions. (1) Not every problem involves questions. (2) Not all problems involve undesirable states. (3) For an agent to consider a situation problematic, they should be aware of the situation; yet awareness of the situation is not necessary for an agent to have a problem or for a situation to be a problem for an agent. (4) Contexts need not be part of the problem: the context of a specific problem need not also be part of a more general problem. (5) The complete elimination of the discrepancy between a situation and a goal eliminates the problem, while the problem continues to exist when it receives a partial solution. (6) For something to be a problem, it does not have to be solvable, and the agent does not have to accept that something needs to be done about it, nor should they use the language of ameliorable/solvable.

在最近关于问题语义的工作的基础上，我们提出了一个更通用的解释，它涵盖了所有主体的问题，无论是人类还是非人类、个人还是群体。情况X对于智能体A来说是一个问题，当且仅当情况X与智能体的目标G不一致，并且消除X和G之间的差异对智能体A来说存在一些困难。另外，如果A特工确实出现了问题，那么他们也必须处于这样的情况X。相反，代理人A认识到情况X对他们来说是一个问题，当且仅当代理人A正确或错误地表示情况X与他们的目标G不一致，代理人A表示（正确或错误）消除X和G之间的差异存在一些困难，并且代理人A正确或错误地表示他们处于情况X 。从这些定义中可以得出几个结论。 (1)并不是每个问题都包含问题。 (2)并非所有问题都涉及不良状态。 (3) 代理人认为某个情况有问题时，他们应该了解该情况；然而，对于代理有问题或情况对代理来说成为问题，并不需要了解情况。 (4)上下文不必是问题的一部分：特定问题的上下文也不必是更一般问题的一部分。 (5)完全消除情况与目标之间的差异就消除了问题，而当问题得到部分解决时，问题仍然存在。 (6) 对于某个问题，它不一定是可解决的，代理人不必接受需要对此采取措施，也不应该使用可改善/可解决的语言。