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Self-Aware Software – Will It Become a Reality?

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Self-star Properties in Complex Information Systems (SELF-STAR 2004)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 3460))

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Abstract

The possibility of building self-aware software fascinated computer scientist since the beginning of computer science. Research in AI, and in particular on software agents, agent system, computational reflection and reflective software delivered interesting results which moved towards the development of software systems with features of self-awareness. However, these approaches have not so far generated any clear success in terms of real and useful self-aware software. Here we introduce the theory of abstract communication systems, which describes the world in terms of systems and their environment. Systems comprise dense, inter-referencing clusters of communications. We analyse natural self-aware systems highlighting the critical features which make them able to be self-aware. We analyse software systems in terms of abstract communication systems theory and compare their critical features with these natural self-aware systems. We describe the necessary features of hypothetical self-aware software, discuss the existing barriers that stand in the way of realization of such systems and how these might be overcome.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Peter Andras

  2. School of Biology(Psychology), University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Bruce G Charlton

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  1. Peter Andras
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  2. Bruce G Charlton
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Ozalp Babaoglu

  2. Szeged University, Hungary

    Márk Jelasity

  3. University of Trento, Italy

    Alberto Montresor

  4. Department of Computer Science, Technische Universtät Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Christof Fetzer

  5. University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy

    Stefano Leonardi

  6. School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Aad van Moorsel

  7. Department of Computer Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Maarten van Steen

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Andras, P., Charlton, B.G. (2005). Self-Aware Software – Will It Become a Reality?. In: Babaoglu, O., et al. Self-star Properties in Complex Information Systems. SELF-STAR 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3460. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11428589_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11428589_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-26009-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32013-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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