Synthetic Agents: Synthetic Minds?
D.N.Davis
Frontiers of Cognitive Agents
IEEE International Symposium on Systems, Man and Cybernetics
San Diego, USA, 1998
Abstract
There are a plethora of agent definitions. These range from descriptions
based on a functional analysis of how agents are used in technology to
far more ranging expositions based on different interpretations of the
role and objectives of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. It
is possible to establish an ontology within which agents (and their applications)
can be characterised, allowing agent definitions to be compared and providing
an ontological framework within which the design requirements for synthetic
agents, and by extension synthetic minds can be addressed. The contention
here is that by developing sufficiently cogent models of (human) minds
that are capable of acting as specifications for a synthetic mind, we can
not only address the strengths and shortcomings of those models (or theories)
through the development of computational models but develop synthetic agents
that could be said to exhibit qualities associated with having a (synthetic)
mind. Irrespective of what dialectic we use to analyse the behavioural
and cognitive qualities associated with a mind, there are a number of underlying
questions that need to be addressed, including: What sort of computational
architecture will enable this phenomenon? It is suggested that there is
no one architecture and the rest of this paper considers a few alternatives.
The discussion is based on experiments with computational agents that address
questions related to the architecture, the range of control states, and
the behavioural and cognitive capabilities associated with a mind.