Editing Autonomous agent

{{Short description|Type of autonomous entity in software}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2023}}

An '''autonomous agent''' is an [[artificial intelligence]] (AI) system that can perform complex tasks independently.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Autonomous Agent |url=https://www.techopedia.com/definition/autonomous-agent |access-date=November 6, 2024 |website=Techopedia}}</ref>

== Definitions ==
There are various definitions of autonomous agent. According to Brustoloni (1991):

{{Blockquote | "Autonomous agents are systems capable of autonomous, purposeful action in the real world."<ref name="Brustoloni"/>}}

According to Maes (1995):

{{Blockquote | "Autonomous agents are computational systems that inhabit some complex dynamic environment, sense and act autonomously in this environment, and by doing so realize a set of goals or tasks for which they are designed."<ref name="Maes"/>}}

Franklin and Graesser (1997) review different definitions and propose their definition:

{{Blockquote | "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."<ref name="FranklinGraesser" /> }}

They explain that:

{{Blockquote | "Humans and some animals are at the high end of being an agent, with multiple, conflicting drives, multiples senses, multiple possible actions, and complex sophisticated control structures. At the low end, with one or two senses, a single action, and an absurdly simple control structure we find a thermostat."<ref name="FranklinGraesser" /> }}

== Agent appearance ==
Lee et al. (2015) post safety issue from how the combination of external appearance and internal autonomous agent have impact on human reaction about [[autonomous vehicles]]. Their study explores the human-like appearance agent and high level of autonomy are strongly correlated with social presence, intelligence, safety and trustworthiness. In specific, appearance impacts most on affective trust while autonomy impacts most on both affective and cognitive domain of trust where cognitive trust is characterized by knowledge-based factors and affective trust is largely emotion driven <ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lee|first=Jae-Gil|date=Summer 2015|title=Can Autonomous Vehicles Be Safe and Trustworthy? Effects of Appearance and Autonomy of Unmanned Driving Systems|journal=International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction|volume=31|issue=10|pages=682–691|doi=10.1080/10447318.2015.1070547|s2cid=36605301 }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Actor model]]
* [[Ambient intelligence]]
* [[AutoGPT]]
* [[Autonomous agency theory]]
* [[Chatbot]]
* [[Embodied agent]]
* [[Intelligent agent]]
* [[Intelligent control]]
* [[Multi-agent system]]
* [[Software agent]]

==References==
{{Reflist|refs=

<ref name="FranklinGraesser">{{cite book | last1=Franklin | first1=Stan | last2=Graesser | first2=Art | title=Intelligent Agents III Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages | chapter=Is It an agent, or just a program?: A taxonomy for autonomous agents | publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg | publication-place=Berlin, Heidelberg | year=1997 | isbn=978-3-540-62507-0 | issn=0302-9743 | doi=10.1007/bfb0013570 | pages=21–35}}</ref>

<ref name="Brustoloni">{{cite book | last=Brustoloni| first=Jose C. | title=Autonomous Agents: Characterization and Requirements, Carnegie Mellon Technical Report CMU-CS-91-204 | publisher=Carnegie Mellon University | year=1991 }}</ref>

<ref name="Maes">{{cite journal | last=Maes | first=Pattie | title=Artificial life meets entertainment | journal=Communications of the ACM | publisher=Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) | volume=38 | issue=11 | year=1995 | issn=0001-0782 | doi=10.1145/219717.219808 | pages=108–114| s2cid=8122852 | doi-access=free }}</ref>

}}

==External links==
*{{cite web|url=http://www.inl.gov/adaptiverobotics/autonomousbehaviors/index.shtml|title=Autonomous Robot Behaviors|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203130820/http://www.inl.gov/adaptiverobotics/autonomousbehaviors/index.shtml|archive-date=3 December 2013}}
*[http://distributed-software.blogspot.com/2006/06/requirements-for-materializing.html Requirements for materializing Autonomous Agents]
* {{cite book | last = Sun | first = Ron | authorlink = Ron Sun | title = Duality of the Mind: A Bottom-up Approach Toward Cognition | publisher = Lawrence Erlbaum | date = September 1, 2001 | location = New Jersey | pages = 304 | url =https://www.questia.com/library/book/duality-of-the-mind-a-bottom-up-approach-toward-cognition-by-ron-sun.jsp |  isbn = 978-0-585-39404-6 }}

[[Category:Artificial intelligence]]
[[Category:Cognition]]