"[A]utonomously specified declarations of intent were simply promises—something conceptually opposite to obligations..." #readingToday

The idea gelled in April of 2004 that autonomously specified declarations of intent were simply promises—something conceptually opposite to obligations, or any other kind of declarative or imperative logic. Promises could be defined as a network that was not necessarily the physical network between computers, more like a network of self-imposed constraints that we call intentions. This was the beginning of a theory that could work.

In Search of Certainty, Mark Burgess, 2013