Smart animated puppets from Stanford that col-laborate with children to improvise stories.An agent called Steve from the ISI, inspired bythe 'angel' in the movie Disclosure, which acts asan instructor within a virtual reality training sys-tem.

An agent named Guardian, developed by re-searchers at Stanford and the Lund Institute ofTechnology, Sweden, that helps doctors monitortheir patients.

Agents '97 is Here!w. Lewis Johnson

"Agents will bring about a revolution," says Pro-gram Co-Chair Pattie Maes of MIT. "Right now,only a privileged few can afford the luxury of ex-perts looking after their interests. But there is astraight line from software we will see at theAgents '97 conference to agents that will giveeveryone this kind of specialist help."

Agents are computer programs that can think forthemselves - something that computers have notbeen capable of since they were first developed,fifty years ago. "Agents-as-characters will be ubiquitous in to-

morrow's on-line products and environments,"says Program Chair Barbara Hayes-Roth of Stan-ford University. "Instead of wandering alonethrough today's lifeless web sites and virtualworlds, we will be greeted, served: and enter-tained by synthetic characters. Like their humancounterparts in the real world, these characterswill play their roles with personality and style."

"Autonomous agent technology is an idea whosetime has come," says Dr. Lewis Johnson, chair ofthe Agents '97 conference. "People in a numberof fields, including robotics, computer science,and electronic entertainment, all recognize theneed for computer systems that can take the initia-tive. Instead of having to write programs to con-trol computers, we would like to be able to tellcomputers what needs to be done, and have themfigure out for themselves how to go about it. Wenow know quite a lot about how to build systemsthat can operate autonomously, and we are seeingsome very interesting applications being devel-oped."

In addition to the teclmical program, Agents '97will offer a day of tutorials. addressing a range ofimportant issues in the design of agent-basedsystems. All the tutors are internationally recog-nized researchers, who have made significantcontributions to the study of autonomous agents.

Software Demonstrations will be held the eveningof Friday, February 7th, from 7:30 to 10:00P.M., on the 9th and 11 th floors. ISDers arewelcome to come and peruse the 29 live demon-strations of autonomous agents for entertainment,infonnation retrieval, simulation, shopping, andmore.

Some examples of agents that will be presented atthe conference:

A space probe from NASA that will be able toplan maneuvers and experiments without contin-ual control from the ground.

An agent called ShopBot from the University ofW~hi~gton which can do comparison shopping

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Cathexis: A Computational Model of EmotionsJuan Velasquez and Pattie Maes. MIT MediaLaboratory

The demonstrations are as follows:

Fab: Adaptive Web Page RecommendationMarko Balabanovic, Stanford University Demonstration of the Leto-Prometheus Neural

SimulatorStephane Zrehen, University of Southern CaliforniaChaUenger: A Multi-agent System for Distributed

Resource AUocalionAnthony Chavez, Alexandros Moukas,and Pattie Maes, MIT Media Laboratory WebCompass: A Knowledge-Management Agent

Brad Allen, John Jensen, Linda Rudell-Betts,Kristina Lennan, Jay Nelson and Brian Ulicny,Quarterdeck Corporation

QuickSet: Agent-based Mulnmodallnteraction forDistributed SimulationsPhil Cohen, Liang Chen, Josh Clow,Michael Johnston, David McGee, Jay Pittman,and Ira Smith, Oregon Graduate Institute

Intelligent Agents Don't W. W. Wait-AutonomyAgentware for the InternetRichard Gaunt, Autonomy, Inc

Yenlil: A Multi-Agent, Referral-BasedMatchmaking SystemLeonard Foner. MIT Media Laboratory

Agents for Populating Land Battle SimulationsJeremy Baxter and R. T. Hepplewhite,Defense Research Agency

Creatures: Artificial Ufe Autonomous SoftwareAgents for Home EntertainmentStephen Grand, Millennium Interactive

Transportable Information AgentsRobert Gray, Daniela Rus, and David Kotz,Dartmouth College KASBAB: A Multi-Agent Marketplace for Buying

and Selling GoodsAnthony Chavez, Pattie Maes and Roben Guttman,Mrr Media Lab

Evolving a Multiagent Information FilteringSolution in AmalthaeaAlexandros Moukas and Giorgos Zacharia,MIT Media Laboratory Intelligent Agents for Combat Simulation

Johnny Chen. Jonathan Gratch. Randy Hill.Milind Tambe and Paul Rosenbloom.USC I In forn1at ion Sciences Institute

SAIRE -- A Scalable Agent-Based InformationRetrieval EngineJide Odubiyi, David Kocur, and Stuart Weinstein,Lockheed Martin; Nagi Wakim, SadanandSrivastava, Chris Gokey, and JoAnna Graham,Bowie State University

Entree: An Agent for Preference BrowsingKristian Hammond and Robin Burke,University of Chicago

COLLAGEN: When Agents Collaborate withPeopleCharles Rich, MERL--A Mitsubishi ElectricResearch Laboratory, and Candace Sidner,Lotus Development Corporation

ARACHNID: Adaptive Retrieval Agents ChoosingHeuristic Neighborhoods for InformationDiscoveryFilippo Menczer and Richard Belew.University of California San Diego

Integrating Pedagogical Capabilities in a ViI1ualEnvironment AgentJeff Ricke! and W. Lewis Johnson,USC I Infonnation Sciences Institute

Search and Rescue AssistantKyle Nelson, Robin Penner, David Musliner,and Kurt Krebsbach,Honeywell Technology Center

Some Recent Agent-Based Demonstrators:ADEPT, MIl & RADARHyacinth Nwana. BT LaboratoriesFinFin on Teo, The Magic PlanetMichael Pontecorvo, Fujitsu Interactive

PHISH-Nets: Planning Heuristically in SituatedHybrid NetworksBrad Rhodes, MIT Media Laboratory

Multiagent Research in the RoboCup SimulatorMilind Tambe, USC I Information Sciences Insti-tute; Peter Stone, Carnegie Mellon University; It-suki Noda, ElectroTechnical Laboratory; and Hi-roaki Kitano, Sony Computer Science Laboratory

Ahoy! The Homepage FinderJonathan Shakes. Marc Langheinrich.and Oren Etzoni. University of Washington

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New Faces in ISDWhere in the World is Xavier, The RobotReid Simmons, Richard Goodwin, Sven Koenig,Joseph O'Sullivan, Karen Zita Haigh,and Greg Armstrong, Carnegie Mellon University

Cooperating InteUigent AgentsKatia Sycara and Anandeep Pannu,Carnegie Mellon University Stacy MarsellaCrellting Interactive Character Agents for the WebTandy Trower, Microsoft

I come to ISI in sunny South-ern California from the East Coast, having livedwith the various frozen, liquid and gaseous statesof water that New England and the Mid-Atlanticstates can offer. My background spans severalareas of AI. I started out in Natural Language re-search, doing my master's research in the acqui-sition and application of contextual bias duringsentence comprehension. In the space betweenmy masters and Ph.D., I did a stint as a perform-ance artist where I staged events in which the mo-tions of dancers or the audience were sensed andtransfonned into "music". From that work, I de-veloped a more general intellectual interest in thetasks of monitoring events in the world, recog-nizing other agents' plans and responding to thoseplans. Those interests fitted well with what wasto become my Ph.D. work, research in the area ofAI planning and learning to plan.

Invited Talks will be given by thefollowing guest speakers:Guardian: An Expert Assistantin the Intensive Care UnitDr. Jan Eric Larsson, Department of InformationTechnology, Lund Institute of Technology

Depicting Perception, Thought, and Actionin Toy StoryTom Porter, Director of Effects Animation, Pixar(Featured Banquet Speaker)

HoUywood AgentsDr. Danny Hillis, Disney Fellow and Vice PresidentR&D, Walt Disney Imagineering

Fusing Autonomy and Sociability in Robots.From Ants to an Imitating HumanoidDr. Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Visiting Researcher,MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

The Ph.D. research in planning was done underthe tutelage of Chuck Schmidt at Rutgers.Chuck's expertise spans several fields, includingAI, music and cognitive psychology. So in addi-tion to the work in AI planning systems. wefound time to collaborate on AI approaches tomusic composition as well as the study of humanproblem solving.

Software Agents that Reason about InformationContent and QualityDr. Daniel S. Weld, Professor of Computer Science,University of Washington

This long-awaited conference will take place at theMarina Beach MaITiott Hotel, Marina del Rey,California, February 5-8, 1997. Among thoseworking diligently to make this conference a suc-cess are lSD's own:

By the ~ I had finished my Ph.D., I was en-thralled by the study of human planners and inparticular the characterization of the systematicityin their problem solving. That led to a Post-Doc atthe newly fonned center for cognitive science,RuCCS, run by Zenon Pylyshyn. Well everyoneloves Zenon, so even though the Center is locatedin New Jersey he had no difficulty attracting allkinds of interesting people to visit and even stay.

W. Lewis Johnson, Conference ChairMilind Tambe, Local Arrangements ChairSheila Coyazo, Conference CoordinatorKaJy Lau, Conference CoordinatorErin Shaw, Software Demos Liaison

So it was difficult to leave. However. eventuallysome colleagues at AT&T took pity on my im-poverished academic state and convinced me tojoin them in work on agents for the Web. At thatpoint, I StaI1ed some interesting work in leverag-ing the Web as a distributed source of knowledgeand computational resources. In a brief time,even for the Web, two systems resulted - the

,:.', _J iJ'"'- "'~~--~:'"""~~~

We are pleased Iof lSD's newformally.

0 introduce onearrivals more

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Automated Assistant and the Search Assistant.Both projects brought me full circle, back tothemes prevalent in my master's work in languagecomprehension and the use of context.

The Search Assistant helps users fonn better que-ries by trying to understand their queries positedin poorly structured English and then mappingthat understanding to what it has learned about theWeb. The Automated Assistant also assists us-ers' search, but it is less interoctive and has moreof an attitude. It is employed in AT&T's Tollfreewebsite that lists companies with AT&T 800numbers. Not all companies that a user is search-ing for have a TollFree listing with AT&T. So dieAutomated Assistant is not above using the Webas a kind of inferencing mechanism that allows itto infer what an unlisted company does and thento promote AT&T alternatives. In addition to sur-prising the user, this promotion delighted AT&TMarketing.

What would you do to improve The InSiDer? Tellus what you think.

Upcoming ISI AI Seminars:

Feb 10 (Mon) Manuela Veloso, CMU"Rationale-Capture and Plan Reuse in MixedInitiative Planning"

It also surprised me. What the AT&T workbrought back to mind is that the application of AItechniques in a restricted context can be extremelyuseful and fun. I see that view as prevalent inmuch of the work on agents. So even though Iwas apparently mistaken that I had escaped theprecipitation by coming to California, I am thrilledto be at ISI which is THE center for work inagents.

March 7 Tony Stentz, Robotics Institute, CMU(title TBA)

March 27 (Tbu) Alexander Hauptmann and Mi.chael Witbrock, CMU (title TBA)

ISI AI Seminars will be held on Fridays at 10:30am in the 11th floor east-side conference room,unless otherwise indicated.

One Year of The InSiDerISD Tidbits

Yes friends, it's been one whole year since thefirst issue of our newsletter was introduced. Tocommemorate the occasion, the editorial staffthought it would be nice to hear what a couple offolks outside of ISO thought about our little pub-lication.

Dilip Jain:Programmer Extrordinaire

Dilip Jain ~ntly joined Pedro Szekely and theMASlERMIND Group. He will be working onthe Thomas Register Project.I enjoy reading the InSiDer! Since I am a busy

administrator, I don't get many opportunities tolearn about the people and activities of ISI's divi-sions, and this publication gives me a view of theISD division that I could not get in any other fonn!

Farewell to Amy and Jonghee

We must regrettably announce that two membersof ISD have left: Amy Hughes and Jonghee Park.Amy decided that she really likes hacking onservers, and joined Joe Touch's networkinggroup.Jonghee completed his period of residencyhere in the US, and returned to Korea.

- Mr. Cary E. Thomas.Director. Administration

and Business Affairs

I really like The InSiDer.next edition will be out.

I often ask Bill when the

Mrs. Janet Swartout

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Birthday Celebrations lSD's Annual RetreatOn the afternoon of Friday, January 24th, we be-gan our monthly celebration of ISD birthdays.Our January celebration took place in the 11 thfloor large conference room and was thoroughlyenjoyed by all those in attendance. The birthdaycelebrations will be held on the 15th of ~hmonth starting in February, unless the 15th fallson a weekend. In that case, the party will takepl~ on the following working day. If you areconcerned about an onslaught of birthday cards,please send the editorial staff comments aboutthis. Also, the $1.00 contributions weren't quiteenough to cover expenses, so starting in Febru-ary, the birthday committee will collect $1.50.Here are the dates for the February and Marchgatherings.

The majority of dte division requested for die re-treat to be held Friday through Sunday, Cktober3-5, 1997. We have reserved die UCLA Confer-ence Center in Arrowhead for that weekend. Wewill need a final head count by early June so markyour calendars and we'll see you and your fami-lies in Arrowhead next fall! We have scheduled aday and a half of meetings, and the rest of thetime wouJd be free for families and fun. We wantto organize some activities for children, includingdemos involving YODA, Ontosaurus, STEVE,etc.

We hope this will be as fun and productive as thelast meeting. If you have any suggestions orwould like to help organize the retreat, pleasecontact Ed, Yolanda, or Theresa.

Tuesday, February 18, 1997Monday, March 17, 1997

.

.

First Bagel Hour a SuccessThanks for helping us celebrate!

On Wednesday, January 15th, ISOstarted its very own bagel hour. Weplan to have the bagel hour every other Wednes-day at noon. These gatherings will include theIntelligent Systems Division and the EnterpriseIntegration Systems Division. We even havesoftware (thanks to Steve Minton), which willkeep track of the rotation, etc. The next bagelhour will take place on Wednesday, February 12at 12:00 P.M.

Wasn't the party nice this time? I enjoyed it a lot,and so did my family. One of the things that makesISl's holiday party special for me is helping put ittogether. Several ISD'ers volunteer every year--good for our division! Without the work of thevolunteers, ISl's holiday party would be just an-other boring social obligation. I hope the partydoesn't lose its nice spirit when it moves off-site.

Here's what three ISDers thought-Sheila Coyazo

Bagels were great, but really need more space(I mean not for the bagels, but for people).

I found the holiday party very enjoyable. I'd liketo have seen someone share a few words about ISI(our goals, accomplishments that different projectsachieved that year- maybe an address from the di-rector, maybe something less fonnal).

- Milind Tambe

I lSD's bagel hourAndrew Philpot- Behnam Salemi

This was one of the most enjo.vable holiday partiesthat I have attended at ISI. It was especially nicethat there were two separate parry rooms. It is toobad that we are losing the 8th floor conferenceroom, making it difficult to hold similar events inthe future.

I'd like to thank Steve and Kary for starting ourne~' tradition. I really like the idea of having aregular Bagel get-together. It's fun to socialize~'ith the people I work with, and it's great to have abagel event on the 9th floor!

-Lewis Johnson - Sheila Coyazo

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There is a group of ISleTs whoregularly get together to play pickup

soccer games on Fridays at noon (12:00 P.M. to1:30 P.M.). If you would like to play with us,please send email to Pedro Szekely <szekely> andhe will add you to the mailing list. It is a lot offun, and the skill level is not important (the gamesare very friendly).