agent vs goal

agent

noun
  • The participant of a situation that carries out the action in this situation, e.g. "the boy" in the sentences "The boy kicked the ball" and "The ball was kicked by the boy". 

  • One who exerts power, or has the power to act 

  • One who acts for, or in the place of, another (the principal), by that person's authority; someone entrusted to do the business of another 

  • An active power or cause or substance; something (e.g. biological, chemical, thermal, etc.) that has the power to produce an effect 

  • Someone who works for an intelligence agency 

  • A cheat who is assisted by dishonest casino staff. 

  • In the client-server model, the part of the system that performs information preparation and exchange on behalf of a client or server. Especially in the phrase “intelligent agent” it implies some kind of autonomous process which can communicate with other agents to perform some collective task on behalf of one or more humans. 

  • A person who looks for work for another person 

goal

noun
  • A noun or noun phrase that receives the action of a verb. The subject of a passive verb or the direct object of an active verb. Also called a patient, target, or undergoer. 

  • A point scored in a game as a result of placing the object into the goal. 

  • The act of placing the object into the goal. 

  • A result that one is attempting to achieve. 

  • In many sports, an area into which the players attempt to put an object. 

verb
  • To score a goal. 

How often have the words agent and goal occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )