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The open agent society as a platform for the user-friendly information society

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Abstract

A thematic priority of the European Union’s Framework V research and development programme was the creation of a user-friendly information society which met the needs of citizens and enterprises. In practice, though, for example in the case of on-line digital music, the needs of citizens and enterprises may be in conflict. This paper proposes to leverage the appearance of ‘intelligence’ in the platform layer of a layered communications architecture to avoid such conflicts in similar applications in the future. The key idea is that if the intelligence is encapsulated in an agent, then the agents should be organized as a society, and then the rules of the society can be used to ensure ‘responsible’ behaviour. We discuss how an agent society can be used to regulate behaviour in future information trading scenarios, and conclude that this approach offers a ‘third way’ which can satisfy the (reasonable) needs of both citizens and enterprises in the user-friendly information society.

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Notes

  1. http://www.cordis.lu/fp5/src/t-2.htm

  2. http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=8302.

  3. Originally called Palladium, http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/jul02/0724palladiumwp. asp

  4. http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-sep12-02.html

  5. http://www.scriptics.com

  6. http://www.napster.com

  7. http://www.gnutella.org

  8. http://www.gnu.org

  9. Similar clauses are found in Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights. Both instruments are based on the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) Treaty article 11 (20 December 1996).

  10. Bing (personal communication) notes that this strategy is relative to culture, especially language. He cites the example of a Japanese producer maintaining that 4 million sales was the threshold for producing a video game for profit, equivalent to the entire population of Norway. Cultural policy is therefore a relevant consideration in this scenario.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been partially supported by the EU IST FET project ALFEBIITE (IST-1999-10298). Particular thanks in the context of this work are due to partners on the project, Jon Bing, Cristiano Castelfranchi, and Abe Mamdani, and to colleagues on the project Alexander Artikis, Lloyd Kamara and Brendan Neville. Thanks also to Angela Sasse for the insight on privacy issues. The author would finally like to thank the reviewers for their many useful comments and the editors for their help in producing this paper.

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  1. Intelligent Systems and Networks Group, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College, London, SW7 2BT, UK

    Jeremy Pitt

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Pitt, J. The open agent society as a platform for the user-friendly information society. AI & Soc 19, 123–158 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-004-0306-1

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