Intelligent Agents on the Internet and Web

BY ROHIT SINGH MANHAS

070919048M.C.A 4TH SEM.

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

•Agents

•Intelligent Agents

•Characteristics of Intelligent Agents

•Classes of Intelligent Agents

•Classification and Application of Intelligent Agents

•Agent Services

•Conclusion

•References

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

An agent is anything that can be viewed as perceiving its environment through sensors and acting upon that environment through its effectors to maximize progress towards its goals.

•Human agent: eyes, ears, and other organs for sensors; • hands, legs, mouth, and other body parts for actuators

•Robotic agent: cameras and infrared range finders for sensors; various motors for actuators

Agents

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Agents interact with environments through sensors and effectors

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

•Intelligent Agent (IA) An intelligent agent (IA) is a self-contained, autonomous software module that could perform certain tasks on behalf of its users with some degree of independence or autonomy, and in so doing, employ some knowledge or representation of the user's goals or desires.

Intelligent Agent

•The term agent is derived from the concept of agency, referring to employing someone to act on your behalf.

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Characteristics of Intelligent Agents

• Autonomy or empowerment –An agent that takes initiative and exercises

control over its own actions have these characteristics:• Goal oriented • Collaborative• Flexible• Self-starting

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

• Communication (interactivity) – Many agents are designed to interact with other

agents, humans, or software programs • Automating repetitive tasks– An agent is designed to perform narrowly defined

tasks, which it can do over and over without getting bored or sick or going on strike

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

• Reactivity – Agents perceive their environment and respond in a

timely fashion to changes that occur in it • Proactiveness (or persistence)– Agents are able to exhibit goal-directed behavior by

taking initiative• Temporal continuity – Agents are continuously running processes that can

be temporarily inactive while waiting for something to occur

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Why Intelligent Agents?

• Information overload– A major value of intelligent agents is that they are able to assist in searching through all the data– Intelligent agents save time by making decisions about what isrelevant to the user on its behalf• Reasons for the success of agents– Decision support– Frontline decision support– Repetitive office activities– Mundane personal activity– Search and retrieval– Domain experts

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Classes of intelligent agents

• Simple Reflex agents• Model-based reflex agents• Goal-based agents• Utility-based agents

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Simple Reflex Agents

Simple reflex agents acts only on the basis of the current percept. The agent function is based on the condition-action rule: if condition then action rule

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

• Percepts: location and contents, e.g., [A, Dirty]• Actions: Left, Right, Suck.

Vacuum-cleaner world

Function REFLEX-VACUUM-AGENT ([location, status]) returns actionif status = Dirty then return Suckelse if location = A then return Rightelse if location = B then return Left

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Model-Based Reflex Agents

A model-based reflex agent keeps track of the current state of the world using an internal model. It then chooses an action in the same way as the reflex agent.

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Function REFLEX-AGENT-WITH-STATE (percept) returns an action static: state, a description of the current world state

rules, a set of condition-action rules action, the most recent action, initially none

state UPDATE-STATE (state, action, percept) rule RULE-MATCH(state, rules) action RULE-ACTION[rule]return action

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Goal-Based Agents

Goal-based agents are model-based agents which store information regarding situations that are desirable. This allows the agent a way to choose among multiple possibilities, selecting the one which reaches a goal state.

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Utility-Based Agents

Goal-based agents only distinguish between goal states and non-goal states. It is possible to define a measure of how desirable a particular state is. This measure can be obtained through the use of a utility function which maps a state to a measure of the utility of the state.

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Utility-Based Agents

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Classification of Intelligent Agents

1. Mobile Agents2. Interface Agents3. Multi-Agent System (MAS)4. Information/Internet Agents5. Learning Agents

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

APPLICATIONS OF INTELLIGENT AGENTS ON THE INTERNET AND WEB

Agent-Based Information Retrieval

1. Information Explosion2. Interfaces3. Mediated Searches and Information Brokers4. Information Filtering Agents

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Agents in Electronic Commerce• Helping the user decide which products to buy• Finding specifications and reviews of them.• Making recommendations• Comparison shopping to find the best price for

the desired product.• Watching for and-intimating user about special

offers and discounts.

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

Agent Services

•Announcement Agents •Book Agents•Business Information Monitoring Agents•Classified Agents•Job Agents•Financial Service Agents•Entertainment Agents

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

CONCLUSIONIntelligent agents on the Internet and Web will grow dramatically in the next few years and they would be put into use in a variety of new applications and services. The following quotes aptly highlight the prospects of intelligent agents.

“Agents are here to stay ... because of their diversity, theirwide range of applicability and the broad spectrum of

companies investing in them.”

“In the future, it [agent] is going to be the only way to searchthe Internet, because no matter how much, better the Internetis going to be organised, it can’t keep pace with information.”

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES1. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Stuart

Russell and Peter Norvig, 1995 Prentice-Hall, Inc. 2. Bradshaw, J. M (ed.,), 1997. Software Agents, Menlo

Park, CA: AAAI/MIT Press, 19973. IEEE Internet Computing, Vol. I, No. 3, July –August 1997,

Special Issue on Internet-Based Agents.4. Communications of the ACM Journal "Intelligent

Agents"Vo1.37, No.7, July 19945. Comm. of the ACM 1994, Special Issue on Intelligent

Agents, July 1994.6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

THANK YOU !!!