Anthropomorphic Agents - Gui

3 papers

Agents of Alienation - Agents are EVIL
	* Agents arms race in advertising
	* Cartoon stereotype of yourself - creates a cartoon model of yourself
		Tivo creates model of you which is frequently incorrect
		Refuses concept of being able to model humans in a computer
	* Humans force themselves to become lesser beings to make agents seem smart
	* Overdose of kitsch
	* Agents - easy way out of creating good interfaces
	
Agents doesn't necessarily have to be anthropomorphic. Does not differentiate between agents that deal with humans and those that doesn't.

There are agents out there with exactly those problems so have some good points but needed to be said

Circular logic - 
	* An agent causes people to put the program above themselves then the person is diminished and this is bad
	* If it doesn't do that then it isn't an agent
	* Therefore agents == bad
	
	
Put best face forward
	
	If agent autonomous then who has input into how the agent behaves.
		Original creator or client who configures the client
		
	Legal problems with creating agents?
		Why agent different from any other piece of software.
		
	Learning agents? 
	
	Agents - source code available etc
	
	Agents is fundermentally a piece of software.
	
	Programmer needs to be aware of how enduser will interact with software
		
	Anthropomorphic with engender different response from user
		Depends on what happening in the 'background'
		
		
Role of Emotions
	Cartoons artists got it right. Agent designers should watch more cartoons. Great idea!
	

General Discussion:	

Current anthro. agents not yet good enough.
	Where is it appropriate place - where you want immertion?
	
At a soccer match - looking for seat?
	Ask for seat - get map
		or 
	Anthro. interface that tells you
	
What is and what isn't anthro?
	Aural feedback?
	Speech recognition?

Star Trek
	Ships computer anthropomorphic?
	Data - past anthropomorphic to new life form
	
Automatic phone answer systems - good anthro?
	
If you can constrain the context enough then they can be good. Need to find the right context/appropriate uses	

Need to seperate interface which is anthropomorphic from the system intelligence. Often the problem is with the intelligence.

Why know how to interact with people so it is an easy to try and fall back on that. Want to make it seem natural for the person ie. what they are used to.

Teams get to know each other so well they don't need to communicate verbally. This would be good - non-verbal cues etc.Not just the speech and the visual. Should be able to interact as you would with a person. But what makes it anthropmorphic rather than just 'intelligent' and efficient.

Phrase of the week: "Artificial artificial intelligence"