Il metodo di planning proposto nel 1993 da Dimopoulos, Nebel e Köhler<ref>{{citecita booklibro|languagelingua=en|first1nome1=Y. |last1cognome1=Dimopoulos |author2link=Bernhard Nebel |first2nome2=B. |last2cognome2=Nebel |first3nome3=J. |last3cognome3=Köhler |chaptercapitolo=Encoding planning problems in non-monotonic logic programs |pagespp=273–285 |editor1-first=Sam |editor1-lastcuratore1=Steel |editor2-first=Rachid |editor2-lastcuratore2=Alami |titletitolo=Recent Advances in AI Planning: 4th European Conference on Planning, ECP'97, Toulouse, France, September 24–26, 1997, Proceedings |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=QSBoQgAACAAJ |yearanno=1997 |publishereditore=Springer |isbn=978-3-540-63912-1 |volume=1348 |seriestrasmissione=Lecture notes in computer science: Lecture notes in artificial intelligence}} [ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/documents/papers/ki/dimopoulos-etal-ecp97.ps.gz as Postscript]</ref>, basato sulla stretta relazione tra le pianificazioni e i modelli stabili,<ref>{{citecita booklibro|languagelingua=en|first1nome1=V.S. |last1cognome1=Subrahmanian |first2nome2=C. |last2cognome2=Zaniolo |chaptercapitolo=Relating stable models and AI planning domains |editor-firstcuratore=Leon |editor-last= Sterling |titletitolo=Logic Programming: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Logic Programming |chapterurlurl_capitolo=http://books.google.com/books?id=vpGEyZWP1dYC&pg=PA233 |yearanno=1995 |publishereditore=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-69177-2 |pagespp=233–247}} [http://www.cs.ucla.edu/%7Ezaniolo/papers/iclp95.ps as Postscript]</ref> costituì uno dei primi esempi di answer set programming. L'utilizzo di [[answer set]] per risolvere problemi di ricerca fu proposto come nuovo paradigma da Marek e Truszczyński, la cui teoria apparve inizialmente nel 1999 su due differenti pubblicazioni.<ref>{{citecita booklibro|languagelingua=en|first1nome1=V. |last1cognome1=Marek |first2nome2=M. |last2cognome2=Truszczyński |chaptercapitolo=Stable models and an alternative logic programming paradigm |editor-firstcuratore=Krzysztof R. |editor-last= Apt |titletitolo=The Logic programming paradigm: a 25-year perspective |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=GIhQAAAAMAAJ |yearanno=1999 |publishereditore=Springer |isbn=978-3-540-65463-6 |chapterurlurl_capitolo=http://xxx.lanl.gov/pdf/cs/9809032 |formatformato=PDF |pagespp=169–181 |ref={{harvid|Apt|1999}}}}</ref><ref>{{citecita journalpubblicazione|languagelingua=en|firstnome=I. |lastcognome=Niemelä |titletitolo=Logic programs with stable model semantics as a constraint programming paradigm |journalrivista=Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence |volume=25 |pagespp=241–273 |yearanno=1999 |doi=10.1023/A:1018930122475 |url=http://users.ics.aalto.fi/ini/papers/lp-csp-long.ps.gz}} ([[PostScript]])</ref>
L'espressione "answer set" come sinonimo di "stable model" fu proposta da Lifschitz.<ref>{{cite paper|language=en|first=V. |last=Lifschitz |title=Action Languages, Answer Sets, and Planning |year=1999}} In {{harvnb|Apt|1999|pp=357–374}}</ref>
