Abstract
Increasingly many computer systems are being viewed in terms of autonomous agents. Agents are being espoused as a new theoretical model of computation that more closely reflects current computing reality than Turing Machines. Agents are being advocated as the next generation model for engineering complex, distributed systems. Agents are also being used as an over arching framework for bringing together the component AI sub-disciplines that are necessary to design and build intelligent entities. Despite this intense interest, however, a number of fundamental questions about the nature and the use of agents remain unanswered. In particular:
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what is the essence of agent-based computing?
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what makes agents an appealing and powerful conceptual model?
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what are the drawbacks of adopting an agent-oriented approach?
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what are the wider implications for AI of agent-based computing?
These questions can be tackled from many different perspectives; ranging from the philosophical to the pragmatic. This paper proceeds from the standpoint of using agent-based software to solve complex, real-world problems.
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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Jennings, N.R. (1999). Agent-Oriented Software Engineering. In: Imam, I., Kodratoff, Y., El-Dessouki, A., Ali, M. (eds) Multiple Approaches to Intelligent Systems. IEA/AIE 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1611. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-48765-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-48765-4_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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