18
Web Intelligence
Agent Terminology
Let us start with explaining what an agent is. An agent is described in Merriam
Webster's dictionary as - "one who is authorized to act for or in the place of
another". When talking about agents in a distributed AI (DAI) context the
word agents usually refers to entities operating in a software environment, so
in order to discern them from other types of agents such as biological agents,
they are frequently called software agents. A Web agent or Internet Agent is
a software agent operating in the World Wide Web or the Internet. A Mobile
Agent refers to the agent's movement capabilities: It can move between different
environments.
An Intelligent Agent refers to the (simulated) behavioral and
intellectual capabilities of the agent.
(Intelligent behavior is the selection of
actions based on knowledge).
If agents' primary goal is to assist users they
are frequently called Interface Agents (interfacing the user), Maes [1994]. An
excellent overview of software agent types is presented by Nwana [1996].
Whenever the word agent is mentioned in the rest of this section we refer to
software agents. In our work we apply interface agents (paper A and B) and
mobile agents (paper C).
Examples of Agents
The cyberspace is full of agents of various types, some of them are:
1. Web spiders (collecting data to build indexes to used by a search engine,
i.e. Google)
2. Computer viruses and worms (destructive agents)
3. Artificial players or actors in computer games and simulations (e.g. Quake)
4. Trading and negotiation agents (e.g. the auction agent at EBay)
5. The animated paper-clip agent in Microsoft Office (figure 3.2)
Figure 3.2: The Animated Paper-clip Agent