Software Agents (Chap 5 of my SM Thesis)

This thesis has so far presented a specific view of what software agents are and how they should be used. However, software agents come in many flavors, and they differ widely in terms of specialization, usefulness, and theoretical motivation. This chapter discusses related work in the field and then outlines the common ties that link even vastly dissimilar agent implementations. We simultaneously discuss how SodaBot relates to and differs from other work in the field.

Section 5.3 presents our motivation for designing the SodaBot system based on experience described in [Kautz et al., 1994]

• What's an Agent?
  • Software agents are on-line pseudo-people
  • Software agents are a testbed for other realms in Core AI.
  • Software agents are intelligent on-line assistants
  • Software agents are negotiators
  • Other Points of View
• Agency Defined
• SodaBot's Motivation
  • The VisitorBot
• About this document ...