Properties Of Agents

Extracted and somewhat edited from WhatIsAnAgent

An agent can be a person, a machine, a piece of software, or a variety of other things. The basic dictionary definition of agent is one who acts. However, for developing IT systems, such a definition is too general: IT-related SoftwareAgents need additional properties. Some of the properties that agents may possess in various combinations include these PropertiesOfAgents:

: Autonomous - is capable acting without direct external intervention. It has some degree of control over its internal state and actions based on its own experiences.
: Interactive - communicates with the environment and other agents.
: Adaptive - capable of responding to other agents and/or its environment to some degree. More advanced forms of AdaptiveAgents can modify their behavior based on their experience.
: Sociable - interaction that is marked by friendliness or pleasant social relations, that is, where the agent is affable, companionable, or friendly.
: Mobile - able to transport itself from one environment to another.
: Proxy - may act on behalf of someone or something, that is, acting in the interest of, as a representative of, or for the benefit of some entity.
: Proactive - goal-oriented, purposeful. It does not simply react to the environment.
: Intelligent - state is formalized by knowledge (i.e., beliefs, goals, plans, assumptions) and interacts with other agents using symbolic language.
: Rational - able to choose an action based on internal goals and the knowledge that a particular action will bring it closer to its goals.
: Unpredictable - able to act in ways that are not fully predictable, even if all the initial conditions are known. It is capable of nondeterministic behavior. (See also EmergentBehavior)
: Temporally continuous - is a continuously running process.
: Credible - believable personality and emotional state.
: Transparent and accountable - must be transparent when required, yet must provide a log of its activities upon demand.
: Coordinative - able to perform some activity in a shared environment with other agents. Activities are often coordinated via a plans, workflows, or some other process management mechanism.
: Cooperative - able to coordinate with other agents to achieve a common purpose; nonantagonistic agents that succeed or fail together. (Collaboration is another term used synonymously with cooperation.)
: Competitive - able to coordinate with other agents except that the success of one agent implies the failure of others (the opposite of cooperative).
: Rugged - able to deal with errors and incomplete data robustly.
: Trustworthy - adheres to ThreeLawsOfRobotics and is truthful.