11.0343 intelligent agents?

Humanist Discussion Group (humanist@kcl.ac.uk)
Fri, 17 Oct 1997 23:12:02 +0100 (BST)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 11, No. 343.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 23:09:03 +0100
From: Willard McCarty <Willard.McCarty@kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: intelligent agents?

I am interested in collecting information about software devices called
"intelligent agents" or "semi-autonomous agents". These are systems that
actively seek information based on profiles of interests that you describe,
deliver the information to you and accept retraining based on their
performance. I would be particularly interested in knowing about any
application of such things to academic or academically interesting bodies of
information.

One such system recently described in the Guardian is called Autonomy, for
which see <http://www.agentware.com/>. On this site a free trial is offered,
but it's rather difficult to determine how successful the system would be
were it turned loose in an academic environment. I know that very
well-funded work has gone on at MIT for some years, by Tom Malone and
others, but don't know if any of this has escaped into the realms we can reach.

Information from you totally autonomous agents would be much appreciated.

Yours,
WM
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dr. Willard McCarty, Senior Lecturer, King's College London
voice: +44 (0)171 873 2784 fax: +44 (0)171 873 5801
e-mail: Willard.McCarty@kcl.ac.uk
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/>

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