Autonomous Agent

An Autonomous Agent is an percieving system with a utility function that can solve an agency task (that requires decision making free from other systems).

• AKA: Autonomous Entity, Independent Perceiving System.
• Context:
  • It can (typically) perform Autonomous Tasks within its operating environment.
  • It can (typically) maintain Agent States through continuous operation.
  • It can (typically) exhibit Agent Behavior Patterns via goal-directed actions and autonomous decision making.
  • It can (often) possess:
    • Agent Resources of its own.
    • Agent Capabilities (skills) to perform an activity (be a capable agent).
    • Agent Goals and Agent Objectives.
    • Agent Memory, such as agent internal states.
  • It can (often) participate in Multi-Agent Systems through agent communication and collaborative behavior.
  • It can (often) adapt its behavior patterns based on environmental feedback.
  • ...
  • It can range from being a Virtual Agent to being a Physical Agent, depending on its agent embodiment type.
  • It can range from being an Intelligent Agent to being a Non-Intelligent Agent, depending on its agent cognitive capability.
  • It can range from being a Mobile Autonomous Agent to being an Affixed Autonomous Agent, depending on its agent mobility characteristic.
  • It can range from being an Emotional Agent to being a Non-Emotional Agent, depending on its agent emotional capability.
  • It can range from being an Autonomous Machine to being an Autonomous Organism, depending on its agent implementation type.
  • ...
  • It can undergo Agent Learning through experience accumulation.
  • It can maintain Agent Memory of its past interactions.
  • It can demonstrate Agent Persistence in continuous operation.
  • ...
• Examples:
  • Robotic Agents, such as:
    • Autonomous Robot, with advanced mobility and sensor systems.
    • Self-Driving Vehicle, performing autonomous navigation in real-world environments.
    • Industrial Robot, executing manufacturing tasks independently.
  • Software Agents, such as:
    • Trading Bot, making autonomous decisions in financial markets.
    • Virtual Assistant, providing user interaction and task automation.
    • Game AI Agent, demonstrating strategic behavior in virtual environments.
    • LLM-based Autonomous Agent, processing natural language and generating contextual responses.
  • Biological Agents, such as:
    • Animal (Natural), displaying innate intelligence and adaptive behavior.
    • Human Agent, exhibiting complex reasoning and emotional intelligence.
    • Cellular Organism, showing basic autonomy at microscopic scale.
  • Specialized Agents, such as:
    • Moral Agent, demonstrating ethical decision making.
    • Economic Agent, performing market-based decisions.
    • Social Agent, engaging in collaborative behavior.
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • Remote Controlled Systems, which lack autonomous decision making capability and require continuous external control.
  • Scripted Programs, which follow predetermined paths without real-time adaptation or independent decision making.
  • Tools, which require external control for operation and lack autonomous capability.
  • Passive Systems, which cannot initiate actions independently or demonstrate agent behavior.
• See: Agent Architecture, Agent Communication, Agent Learning, Multi-Agent System, Agent Environment, Agent Protocol, Autonomous Behavior, Agent Intelligence, Swarm Intelligence, Evolutionary Computation.

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References

2017

• (Sammut & Webb, 2017) ⇒ (2017) Agent. In: Sammut, C., Webb, G.I. (eds) Encyclopedia of Machine Learning and Data Mining. Springer, Boston, MA
  • QUOTE: In computer science, the term “agent” usually denotes a software abstraction of a real entity which is capable of acting with a certain degree of autonomy. For example, in artificial societies, agents are software abstractions of real people, interacting in an artificial, simulated environment. Various authors have proposed different definitions of agents. Most of them would agree on the following set of agent properties:
    • Persistence: Code is not executed on demand but runs continuously and decides autonomously when it should perform some activity.
    • Social ability: Agents are able to interact with other agents.
    • Reactivity: Agents perceive the environment and are able to react.
    • Proactivity: Agents exhibit goal-directed behavior and can take the initiative.

2014

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/autonomy Retrieved:2014-11-26.
  • Autonomy (Ancient Greek: αὐτονομία autonomia from αὐτόνομος autonomos from αὐτο- auto- "self" and νόμος nomos, "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's own law") is a concept found in moral, political, and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision. In moral and political philosophy, autonomy is often used as the basis for determining moral responsibility and accountability for one's actions. One of the best known philosophical theories of autonomy was developed by Kant. In medicine, respect for the autonomy of patients is an important goal, though it can conflict with a competing ethical principle, namely beneficence. Autonomy is also used to refer to the self-government of the people.

2013

• (Stanford U, 2013) ⇒ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/personal-autonomy/
  • Autonomous agents are self-governing agents. But what is a self-governing agent? Governing oneself is no guarantee that one will have a greater range of options in the future, or the sort of opportunities one most wants to have. Since, moreover, a person can govern herself without being able to appreciate the difference between right and wrong, it seems that an autonomous agent can do something wrong without being to blame for her action. What, then, are the necessary and sufficient features of this self-relation? Philosophers have offered a wide range of competing answers to this question.

2011

• (Kahneman, 2011) ⇒ Daniel Kahneman. (2011). “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” Macmillan. ISBN:0374533555
  • QUOTE: … Bruno Frey barely recalls writing the piece, but I can still recite its first sentence: “The agent of economic theory is rational, selfish, and his tastes do not change.” …

2009a

• (Wiktionary, 2009) ⇒ http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/agent
  • One who exerts power, or has the power to act;
  • an actor;
  • One who acts for, or in the place of, another (the principal), by authority from him;
  • one …

2009b

• (ISI, 2009) ⇒ http://www.isi.edu/~hobbs/bgt-cause.text
  • 2. Agents and Agenthood
  • There are some entities in the world that are viewed as being capable of initiating a causal chain. This is a scientifically inaccurate view; when a dog stands up and walks across a room, there are events in its brain that caused it to do so. But the idea pervades commonsense reasoning. We say that the dog's walking was caused by the dog, and don't necessarily expect to find anterior causes.
  • We will call such entities agents. People are the prime examples of agents, but the class also includes robots and other intelligent software, higher animals, organizations, and a variety of fictional entities like gods, ghosts, and goblins. Frequently, when we use a person metaphor for some other type of entity, agenthood is what motivates us.

1999

• (Sen, 1999) ⇒ Amartya Sen. (1999). “Development As Freedom.” Oxford University Press.
  • QUOTE: The use of the term “agency” calls for a little clarification. The expression “agent” is sometimes employed in the literature of economics and game theory to denote a person who is acting on someone else's behalf (perhaps being led on by a “principle"), and whose achievements are to be assessed in the light of someone else's (the principal's) goals. I am using the term “agent” not in this sense, but in its older - and "grander" - sense as someone who acts and brings about change, and whose achievements can be judged in terms of her own values and objectives, whether or not we assess them in terms of some external criteria as well. This work is particularly concerned with the agency role of the individual as a member of the public and as a participant in economic, social and political actions (varying from taking part in the market to being involved, directly or indirectly, in individual or joint activities in political and other spheres).

1996

• (Franklin & Graesser, 1996) ⇒ Stan Franklin, and Art Graesser. (1996). “Is It An Agent, Or Just a Program?: A Taxonomy for Autonomous Agents.” In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Intelligent Agents III, Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages.
  • QUOTE: An autonomous agent is a system situated within and a part of an environment that senses that environment and acts on it, over time, in pursuit of its own agenda and so as to effect what it senses in the future.

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