3.

Agency

- Happy to oblige, Duncan. The first general principle is that agents mimic humans... mostly that
is.
- And why is that, then?
- Well, we are generally created by humans and have to interact with humans, so it is natural that
we are built to look familiar to them. In our processing skills, I mean. We don’t have to physically
look like humans - although we often do take on an avatar that is human-like - again just for the
familiarity and comfort effect.
- Yes, just like you did yesterday when you brought me into that virtual world we visited. I really
enjoyed it, you know.
- I’m glad you did, Duncan. It’s fun to show off a virtual world.
- So, Kaidie, you were saying that you usually take on a human personality, but not always?
- Right. Agents are not humans, they are rational beings - oh, there are some that are made
specially to pour out emotions and relate on that level, but they are generally shunned. Agents, on
the whole, are worker ants, specialized to get things done.
- But, you seem pretty well-rounded, yourself, Kaidie.
- Yes, that’s true, I’m a Personal Assistant... a PA, so I’m fairly complex. But I have all kinds of
subordinate agents at my disposal to engage very specific tasks when I need them to. They don’t
relate to humans, they only interact with other agents.
- So those ones don’t have to be very human-like, then.
- Right. And they don’t have the complexity of an agent like myself. We make them to be simple -
a great virtue in itself. And we make them, humans don’t. I create them all the time, by the dozens
sometimes, and when they are no longer needed, once the task is done, they disappear. They
dissipate.
- Really? So they’re very ephemeral then, coming and going like that. We’re used to sentient
beings having longer life spans, I must admit.
- True, Duncan. Keep in mind, though, that infospace is not your traditional natural space. The
pace of events is much quicker in infospace, except when we interact with humans and other
sentient beings, like you. It’s all a question of adapting to circumstances.
- So what are agents, Kaidie?
- Well, quite simply, they are information structures that carry out, with some autonomy,
processes that they are tasked with.
- Just like a regular software program, except for the autonomous bit, then?
- Yes, both are cognitive tools that accomplish some symbolic task, but an agent is a semi-
independent entity - it regulates its own activity. Within the scope of decision-making that it was
delegated.
- So delegation is the crucial element, then.
- For an agent, yes. There is always a decisional hierarchy involved. With me, the buck stops with
George - he is the one who determines what to let me decide and what he wants to decide himself.
In a very dynamic fashion, mind you - this is not all determined once and for all up front.
Circumstances change all the time.
- And what about those agents you create?
- Also dynamic. The task is usually very specific, like going to get some piece of information out
there in infospace, wherever it might be. But how the agent does that, where it goes, and so on,
are all left to the agent. If it’s complex enough, it might itself create further sub-agents to carry
out sub-tasks. It can get very complex, but it’s always very structured.
- Structured but still fluid...
- Right on, Duncan. An agent needs to keep a sense of focus if its activity is to be meaningful, but
yet, it has to be prepared to adapt, when challenges crop up, if it really wants to make some
headway. There is a difficult balance to achieve there, and agents sometimes go haywire -
remember those rogue agents I spoke to you about earlier?
- Huh, yes.
- But we try to learn from these errors and fine-tune our agent-creating whenever we can. There
is constant progress in this arena, just like anywhere else.
- The autonomy agents have, that means a certain amount of decision-making, right?
- Yes, a certain degree of rationality, which implies having two other things, namely some
knowledge and some sentience. Knowledge of oneself and of the environment. And sentience in
terms of being able to monitor that environment and learn from it.
- Ok. And the rationality is the process of determining the best course of action, given all that
knowledge and the task in hand. In as coherent and confident manner as possible, I presume.
- Exactly right. Oh, you are quite an ingenious one, Duncan!
- Well, you know, knowledge and coherence are things I discuss a lot with Caruso. We’re trying
to figure out exactly what this information realm consists of.
- Fascinating.
- Tell me more about the autonomous side of agents, Kaidie.
- Well, that’s what distinguishes us from a regular software program, because otherwise, we are
just like a program. We simply follow a script that is geared to getting something accomplished.
- I suppose we all follow scripts, in a way.
- Yes, but a software program is more like a standard tool, something to be used by someone.
- It is that someone who makes the decisions and guides the overall process.
- Right. Whereas an agent is more like a living creature. It has some autonomy in how it goes
about getting things done.
- Hum... relatively speaking, of course.
- Yes, yes, of course. Take me for instance, I’m organized to fetch information on the Net and to
report back the results to George. I organize a whole swarm of sub-agents to cover different areas
of the Net and tackle different databases. And I do that how best I see fit - I have certain
standards, certain criteria that guide me in how I go about it, and I monitor what transpires in the
process and decide when to report to George.
- So George isn’t involved in the search itself. He just hands it all over to you.
- That’s it. He is not interested in the details of how I do it, just in the results. Of course, if he
wants to see the details, I’ll show him exactly what was done. No problem. He’s the boss!
- So that’s your autonomous field then.
- One of them. As a PA, I also handle all his communications and help him in agenda-setting, and a
lot more too.
- Like a personal secretary.
- That’s what a PA is. And, he’s happy to have me!
- Now, Kaidie, your autonomy requires initiative, right? You have to decide what to do, where to
send out the subs, when to stop and when to send out more, and so on.
- Yes. I have a whole set of decision rules that I apply to a given situation.
- Just a bunch of decision rules?
- Just like you do, Duncan! The complexity of your decision rule set, combined with your often
unconscious motivational patterns, give you the impression that you decide things out of the blue.
But you don’t. You follow a rational rule set, as well as your emotions. Your free decision-making
is but an impression.
- Oh, you’re touching on a big topic there, Kaidie. But I see your point. As you said, you are a
rational being, not a human.
- Exactly.
- So those decision rules fire away and get things done by initiating certain actions. Actions that
are appropriate to the context.
- Yes, precisely. You’ve hit it on the nail there, Duncan. Any action is contextual. It has to fit the
context, it has to work, so to speak.
- It’s that coherence principle again! Everything has to hold together, right?
- Yes, but do you see how that limits my autonomy?
- Yep. Your autonomy is truly relative. Any autonomy is, even George’s, in its own larger context.
- Right. Autonomy is a certain freedom of action within constraints, it has some degrees of
freedom, but is certainly not unlimited. It is bound by its context... bound to its context.
- And I guess, Kaidie, that whoever programs you determines that binding, decides what degrees
of freedom to give you in this area and that area.
- That’s true. And it’s hierarchical. George determines my limits of operation, what I can do within
what context, and I determine the same for the sub-agents I create. And if they need to create
even more specific subs, they determine their limits. Just like a hierarchical structure in an
organization, right?
- Yes, it looks like it. Autonomy within autonomy within autonomy. It’s just the scope of it that
changes.
- Yes, that’s it. Decision rules, by their very nature, determine a proper response to a given
context. The context is the determining factor, really. If I cannot make out the context, if it’s
beyond my scope, so to speak, well then, I just can’t decide, I have to either try another tactic to
get at the context or simply pass the ball on upwards to George.
- His context would be much larger of course. Maybe shallower, but broader.
- Right. And that same delegation and appeal process takes place with my own sub-agents. With
all successful agents, really.
- So there is a lot of inter-agent communication going on?
- Oh yes, all the time. Amongst ourselves, and also with other agents, outside of our immediate
entourage. Everyday, I get calls from agents who want to get in touch with George... or rather,
who are representing people who want to contact George. Part of my job is to handle George’s
communications, both synchronous and asynchronous.
- You mean in real time and delayed?
- Yep. And it’s not always easy - it can get very political, you realize, because there are all kinds of
games being played in infospace. There are all kinds of motivations and personalities out there.
Generally in the people who work and travel the Net, but also in agents themselves...
- I thought you folks were all rational and just that.
- That’s the usual case, very lean and functional. But then, there are people who are programming
personalities into their agents, making them for instance more persistent or more aggressive.
Infospace is after all but a reflection of the politics of the physical world.
- It doesn’t sound too interesting, Kaidie.
- Oh but it’s regulated too, just like the ordinary world is. Agents that get out of line are tracked
down and disposed of. And there are consequences for their owners too.
- You mean all agents are identified to their owners?
- Oh yes. It’s the only way to keep the place clean. All unidentified agents are systematically
eliminated. Infospace is a very highly regulated interaction space.
- I guess the complexity and the power of it all require that. After all, there must be millions of
swarms of agents all over the place. Some simple ones and some very complex ones. What makes
for complexity, then, Kaidie?
- Well, it’s knowledge. Remember, we were talking earlier about the scope of decision-making.
And that is directly dependent on the breadth and depth of knowledge one has.
- Yes, I see. When we rely on experts, it’s their knowledge that we seek, isn’t it?
- Uh huh. And an agent needs three specific kinds of knowledge, three different models. A model
of oneself, a model of the environment, and a model of the task. Everything is subsumed in these
three models.
- Hum... I see the first as the most interesting. A model of yourself. I suppose it means a model of
what you can do and cannot do, what your communication patterns are, who you report to, and
so on.
- That’s most of it. There is also knowledge of my sentience, what I can perceive and what I can’t.
Then, there is knowledge of how my memories are structured. Ah, but all that combines into one
key component. Make a guess.
- You don’t mean consciousness, do you?
- Oh yes I do, Duncan!
- Really? You’re saying that consciousness boils down to a combination of those knowledge
elements we talked about?
- Yep. It’s even simpler than that. Being conscious is simply being aware, that is, mentally
perceiving what is going on.
- On an emotional level too, though.
- Oh yes, both rationally and emotionally. But consciousness generally means self-awareness,
feeling the individual ‘I’ as an independent actor in the world.
- Uh huh...
- And that doesn’t take all that much to achieve, at a basic level of course. All you need is to
cleanly distinguish yourself from the environment and create yourself an identity! Heck, I’m self-
conscious, Duncan! Just like you are.
- Oh, I never doubted it, Kaidie. Really, I never did! But it’s that simple, really?
- Well, I am simplifying here, you know. It takes a great deal of knowledge... knowledge of the
environment I am in, knowledge of my own capabilities and of my own limitations, how I am the
same and different from others, and so on. There is quite a lot there.
- But you mentioned creating your own identity?
- I should say developing my own identity - it’s pretty much an ongoing process. I was given an
identity, formally, when I was first created, but I evolve all the time, increasing my abilities and my
sense of self as I go along.
- Yes, I suppose so. You learn just like anybody else. Even though you don’t have a physical body,
you are somebody. Ha ha...
- Oh, you’re a funny one, Duncan! I’m not sure I like your making fun of me.
- Oh Kaidie, I’m just joking, you know. I have an awful lot of respect for you. It’s just that... I
realized that you are but a set of information. Nothing more... but a lot more too.
- Well, thank you, Duncan.
- Oh, nothing at all, Kaidie. Well, I’m pooped. I think I’ll have a little nap. See you later, Kaidie.
- Okie dokie, Duncan. Till next time.

And while the rain was still pounding at the windows. Duncan thought himself fortunate to be
inside as he stretched out on the carpet and found a comfortable position to doze off in. He also
thought himself fortunate to be a dog, not just some piece of information. Although there are ups
and downs to any situation, he mused as he dropped off to dreamland.