Probably all the major software manufacturers are exploring the use of intelligent agents. Myths, promises, and reality are all colliding. But the main difficulties I foresee are social, not technical: How will intelligent agents interact with people and perhaps more important, how might people think about agents? The new crop of "intelligent agents" are different from the automated devices of earlier eras because of their computational power: They take over human tasks, and they interact with people in human-like ways, perhaps with a form of natural language.

1. How Might People
Interact with Agents
By: Aryan Rathore
Head Of Aryan Dell Corporation Jaipur
Aryan Computer Organization Jaipur
Mob:- 8560089002

2. • Probably all the major software
manufacturers are exploring the use of
intelligent agents. Myths, promises, and reality
are all colliding. But the main difficulties I
foresee are social, not technical: How will
intelligent agents interact with people and
perhaps more important, how might people
think about agents?

3. • The new crop of "intelligent agents" are
different from the automated devices of
earlier eras because of their computational
power:
• They take over human tasks, and they interact
with people in human-like ways, perhaps with
a form of natural language

4.  Thus, agents might set up schedules, reserve
hotel and meeting rooms, arrange transportation,
and even outline meeting topics, all without
human intervention.
Other, more complex interventions in human
activities are contemplated.
These human-like activities and characteristics are
what lead to the special concern over today's
agents.
Moreover, today's agents are simple in comparison
to those that are being planned.

5. • To ensure a smooth introduction of this
technology, two major themes are relevant.
One theme deals with the way people feel
about agents, the other with comfort and
acceptance of their automatic, autonomous
actions.

6.   Ensuring that people feel in control of their
computational systems;
 The nature of the human-agent interaction;
 Built-in safeguards to prevent runaway
computation;
 Providing accurate expectations (and minimizing
false hopes);
 Privacy concerns (a subset of the feeling of
control problem);
 Hiding complexity while simultaneously revealing
the underlying operations.

7. The Feeling of Control
• An important psychological aspect of people's
comfort with their activities -- all of their
activities, from social relations, to jobs, to
their interaction with technology -- is the
feeling of control they have over these
activities and their personal lives

8. It's bad enough when people are intimidated by
their home appliances: what will happen when
automatic systems select the articles they should
read, determine the importance and priority of
their daily mail, and automatically answer mail,
send messages, and schedule appointments?
It is essential that people feel in control of their
lives and surroundings, and that when automata do
tasks for them, that they are comfortable with the
actions, in part through a feeling of
understanding, in part through confidence in the
systems.

9. • The lack of confidence in automation is justified.
We have a poor track record in developing large
scale, com
• Agents pose especially complex technical questions
because they are intended to be autonomous
processes, sometimes capable of migrating across
networks and processors plex systems.
• Moreover, each agent is apt to be created
independently of the others, often in ignorance of
the existence of others, so conflicts, contradictory
actions, and synchronizing problems are bound to
occur.

10. • Two things are necessary to make all this
technology acceptable: one is technical, the
other social. The technical aspect is to devise
a computational structure that guarantees that
from the technical standpoint, all is under
control. This is not an easy task.

11. The social part of acceptability is to provide
reassurance to the user that all is working
according to plan.
The best way to do this is through developing an
appropriate conceptual model of the actions, one
in which the actions of agents are understood in
context so users feel comfortable in their ability
to find out what actions have been taken in their
behalf, that private matters remain private, that
expensive or unwanted actions will not be taken
without explicit permission, and that it is always
possible to trace back the actual sequence of acts
and undo any that are seen as unwarranted.

12. • This is a non-trivial task. We don't yet know
how to do this, and to a large extent, the
amount of information and explicit control
that has to be provided is a function of the
state of the individual's own comfort level: this
will change over time, both for individuals and
for society.

13. • Probably, in the early days, agents will have to
make their presence and actions known
through a conceptual model of the underlying
operations and then, through graphics, sound,
and appropriately chosen verbal messages,
provide a continual updating of the conceptual
state.
• As reliability increases, so too will people's
comfort and acceptance.

14. Overblown Expectations
• If the one aspect of people's attitudes about
agents is fear over their capabilities and
actions, the other is over-exaggerated
expectations, triggered to a large extent
because much more has promised than can be
delivered.
• Part of this is the natural enthusiasm of the
researcher who sees far into the future and
imagines a world of perfect and complete
actions. Part of this is in the nature of people's
tendency to false expectations.

15. Safety
• Safety plays a part in the feeling of control:
making sure that the agent does not do things
that would jeopardize the physical, mental, or
monetary well-being of the owner.
• But how can this be guaranteed when
intelligent agents might enter one's system
from outside? Sometimes one won't even know,
as when they arrive in the mail, or are parts of
some new set of capabilities being added to
the computational system.

16. • How does one guard against error,
maliciousness (as in the spread of computer
viruses), and deliberate intent to pry and
probe within one's personal records?

17. Privacy
Privacy is a complex topic, one deeply rooted in
human cultural and legal systems. The concerns
for privacy within the United States are not
necessarily mirrored in the rest of the world, nor
for that matter, even in the prior history of the
United States.
Privacy often pits the interests of one group
against another: the right of citizens to know what
their government is doing; the right of one family
to know what its neighbors are doing; the right or
necessity of a government or person to keep its
activities private and confidential.

18. Not all the need for privacy is to avoid the
detection of wrong-doing. White lies and other
deceptions are an essential, positive aspect of
social interaction, allowing for smoother, friendlier
social discourse.
The idea that autonomous, intelligent agents could
have access to personal records, correspondence,
and financial activities is disturbing to many
individuals, no matter how helpful the agents
might be. Moreover, as the ability to imbed agents
within electronic mail messages becomes more
prevalent, who will be comfortable with the mail
systems?

19. • Privacy and confidentiality of actions will be
among the major issues confronting the use of
intelligent agents in our future of a fully
interconnected, fully communicating society.
We must address those issues now, not just in
the technical sense, but in the local, national,
and global legal systems.

20. Human-Agent Interaction
• What is the appropriate form of interaction
between agent and person?
• The question has many different components,
including how the person shall instruct and
control the agent, the nature of the feedback
from agent to person, the manner by which
the person's conceptual model of the agent's
method of operation and activities is
presented, and the manner by which the agent
offers advice and information to the person.

21. • Take the problem of instruction: programming
the agent. This is a complex issue. Various
suggestions exist, from having the agent
instruct itself by watching over people's
activities and deciding how it can offer help,
to instruction "by doing": "watch what I do,"
says the person," "and then do it for me."

22. Agents are here to stay: once unleashed,
technologies do not disappear.
Agents may well have numerous positive
contributions to our lives. They can simplify our
use of computers, allowing us to move away from
the complexity of command languages or the
tedium of direct manipulation toward intelligent,
agent-guided interaction.
Agents offer the possibility of providing friendly
assistance, so smoothly done that users need not
even be aware

23. • But along with the promise comes potential
danger. Agents are unlike other artifacts of
society in that they have some level of
intelligence, some form of self-initiated, self-
determined goals.
• Along with their benefits and capabilities come
the potential for social mischief, for systems
that run amok, for a loss of privacy, and for
further alienation of society form technology
through increasing loss of the sense of control.

24. • None of these negative aspects of agents are
inevitable. All can be eliminated or minimized,
but only if we consider these aspects in the
design of our intelligent systems.