An agent can be defined as an entity within a system that “takes sensory input from the environment and autonomously produces outcomes that affect its environment”. For instance, a thermostat can be considered a hardware agent that senses the temperature in the environment and switches heating or cooling devices on or off to maintain a temperature close to a certain value.
The concept of software agents can be traced back to the Concurrent Actor Model developed by Hewitt. This mathematical model introduced the concept of Self-contained Actors that execute functions concurrently and communicate with each other through messages. Nwana describes agents as “software or hardware components within a system that are capable of accomplishing tasks on behalf of its source”, based on information received from the environment.
There are distinctions between an agent and an Intelligent Agent (IA). The level of autonomy and other properties distinguish IAs from agents. The Wooldridge and Jennings definition of weak and strong agencies currently dominates most literature. The weaker notion defines the term agent as having the ability to provide simple autonomy, reactivity, proactivity, and sociability.
- Autonomy is the most important property of an IA and is defined as the ability of an agent to make decisions and control its actions and internal states without direct intervention from other entities (human or machine). In other words, an IA is independent and makes its own decisions.
- Reactivity refers to the ability of an agent to perceive and react to environmental changes in order to achieve the goal(s).
- Proactivity is the ability of an agent to plan and perform the required actions to achieve its goal(s).
- Social Ability enables agents to communicate and interact with each other and other entities in the environment. This interaction can be in the form of coordination, cooperation, negotiation, and even competition.
The stronger notion of agency is more descriptive and refers to computer systems that extend the above properties, as either abstract or personified concepts. It is quite common in an IA to characterise an agent using cognitive notions including knowledge, belief, intention, and obligation. In the strong notion of agency, agents are considered to have more human-like characteristics and mental attitudes, including rationality, learning, mobility, cooperation, and coordination.
For more details on these and the reference check out this blog post.
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