Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T13:25:58.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Diversity and agent technology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 1999

MICHAEL WOOLDRIDGE
Affiliation:
Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of London, London E1 4NS, UK (email: [email protected])

Abstract

When I began studying for my PhD, I knew exactly what field I wanted to work in. It was a subfield of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that was known as Distributed AI (DAI). In DAI, we studied how a number of (semi-)autonomous problem solving systems known as ‘agents’ could be made to cooperate and coordinate their activities to produce effective overall system behaviour (Bond and Gasser, 1988). At the time, not many people were working in distributed AI (only two books had been published on the subject). I found that when I talked about my research, I had to repeatedly explain what ‘agents’ were all about. It was depressing business. More than once, I wished I had gone into a more glamorous area of research - the expert systems people were getting all the glory.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)