Preview

Software Agents

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1180 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Software Agents
1 INTRODUCTION

1 Goals

The tutorial is intended to provide information on agents and agent technology to educate more of the software development and CHI community on the impact and nature of current Agent technology. By providing a reasonable backdrop for agents, this tutorial hopes to allow the student to pursue additional reading material with a more objective eye for that which is real and that which is hyperbole (hysteria?).

2 Objectives

The tutorial student should leave with a general understanding of the structure and architectures of current agent technology, the terminology and common definitions in the field, and an understanding of some of the user interface issues in software agents.

2 TUTORIAL

1 What's an Agent?

The dictionary definition of agent turns out to be appropriate for this discussion:

agent \'a--j*nt\ n 1: something that produces or is capable of producing an effect : an active or efficient cause 2: one who acts for or in the place of another by authority from him.

In our discussion of software agents, both of the above definitions apply. Software agents, by definition, are active, independent components. Most agents are designed to act as or for the user to help execute some task or operation.

Each developer and researcher in the agents field adopts their own definition of an Agent. Leonard Foner defines an agent as a "program that performs tasks for a user" 1. While this is an accurate definition, it's not very useful. Pattie Maes has a more useful definition:

"A Software Agent is a computational system which has goals, sensors, and effectors, and decides autonomously which actions to take, and when"2

To my mind "Agent" is not a definition but a characteristic that software has to one degree or another. We can only define a software component as an agent by examining it's characteristics and behaviors. The first part of this tutorial is an examination of some of these characteristics and a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    This agent is already implemented in the GekoProAg project. For the prototype implementation, a simple agent which has one behaviour is created. The class diagram of this package can be seen below in Figure 19.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    References: Simon, H. (1997). An introduction to the science of artificial intelligence. Retrieved from http://library.thinkquest.org/2705/…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    c. Incorrect. This is the definition of an independent contractor, who may or may not be an agent.…

    • 1223 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Defining what exactly AI is has become something of a challenge. Michael Webb said in an interview with David J. Parnell for Forbes (2016), “Fifty years ago, people defined AI as, for example, playing chess. Chess was seen as this quintessentially human ability that would never be approached by machines. It was almost definitional — what it meant to be intelligent was that you could play chess. Then, along came certain algorithms and it turned out that computers could play chess at least as well as humans could.” We use AI every day. Smart phones with voice recognition, self-driving vehicles, and software that can learn our preferences are all examples of AI currently in use today.…

    • 388 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psychology Key Terms

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages

    artificial intelligence (AI) - a computer or machine that has been created to think like a human.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A multitude of different movies portrays Artificial Intelligence (AI) as something to be feared; an entity that would be the demise of humanity. Despite what these movies portray, it is up for dispute whether AI is a threat to humanity. AI is becoming more commonplace and more advanced everyday both in the real and virtual world. Multiple different AI entities have previously malfunctioned and caused issues. A multitude of groups of individuals feels that restrictions should be placed on AI entities, while others believe that AI poses no threat to any individual. Whether or not, AI is a threat is still up to question.…

    • 1851 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    •What are the advantages/disadvantages of the BOT strategy and how does it stack up against the other two options Dalton outlines in her Excel spreadsheet? What are opportunism, capability, and flexibility implications of the strategy?…

    • 251 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    2. An agent is a person who acts on in lieu of, and for a principal. They typically conduct business transactions in a similar manner in which the principal would, but allows for many more transactions to be made rather than if the principal where conducting them on their own. The agent however, is usually not given as much authority as the principal would…

    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Herbert Simon Research Paper

    • 2997 Words
    • 12 Pages

    This paper investigates and provides factual research on Mr. Herbert Simon and his contributions to the founding of Artificial Intelligence. Herbert A. Simon was one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence. Simon, who, along with Allen Newell and J.C. Shaw, wrote the first AI program in 1956, received many honors in his lifetime, including the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1978. Simon was a true renaissance man. He researched human decision-making and problem-solving processes and the implications of those processes for social institutions.…

    • 2997 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Steve levy is a writer and author of many books about the computer and AI. In his essay, Levy talks about two different types of artificial intelligence (AI). First Levy talks about how robots organize warehouses. In warehouses for Gap, Staples, and Office Depot, kiva systems made this possible. These robots organize warehouses, and can deliver items to human packers as fast as six seconds (209) These robots are programed to think and react much faster than humans.…

    • 552 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    First of all, the question we all ask after the movie. Is the Matrix real? What if our life is really just set in a virtual world, so that we don’t know about the truth about what is really happening? I find it hard to believe that the Matrix is real, but isn’t that what all people in the Matrix think? There is no way we can discount the possibility that the world we are living in is a virtual world. There is one way though. In this world, we don’t have agents or anyone with superpowers (at least I hope not…). However, it might be that no one has ever escaped the Matrix, so there is no need for agents……

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Termination of Agency

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages

    | If an agent is appointed to accomplish a particular task or for a specific purpose, when the task is accomplished by the agent or the specific purpose is attained, the agency will terminate.…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The REA Approach to Database

    • 12429 Words
    • 82 Pages

    not directly effect a change in resources. Agents are individuals within and outside the organization who participate in an…

    • 12429 Words
    • 82 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    John McCarthy, who originally used the phrase in 1956, defines artificial intelligence as, “[…] the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but artificial intelligence does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable.”[2] Artificial intelligence is a means for having a machine operate in a manner that would normally require a human to make decisions as the task is being done. The applications of artificial intelligence can range from the mundane, such as in manufacturing, to the very impractical, such as video games or theoretical and philosophical applications like the Turing Test.…

    • 1920 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Snmp Notes

    • 2582 Words
    • 11 Pages

    An agent is a network-management software module that resides on a managed device. An agent has local knowledge of management information and translates that information to or from an SNMP specific form.…

    • 2582 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays