Anthropoid Agents

Abstract

In the study of agents on the Internet, we often ascribe to them human qualities, such as beliefs and intentions. These qualities are best understood as metaphors that give developers a way to talk about and design the capabilities and applications of agents. Despite all the progress in computing, users have been slow to accept the technology. They have often accepted what was thrown at them, but only under economic duress. Bringing the technology closer to their emotional needs might ease this resistance. So how can we put a human face on computing? Maybe by putting an animated face on it! Thus, an interface may consist of an agent, which has an explicit presence (for example, as an on-screen animated figure) and appears to have a personality. In computer human interfaces, especially for education and commerce where a large variety of people must deal with computers, an anthropoid agent might be more inviting. Depending on the situation, the agent might appear shy, friendly, stern, or knowledgeable. For example, people might better accept advice offered politely by a shy agent, or heed warnings uttered seriously by a stern agent. And they might be more likely to purchase goods or services offered by a friendly, knowledgeable agent that could appear empathetic to their needs.

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University of South Carolina
Scholar Commons
Faculty Publications Computer Science and Engineering, Department
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1-1-1998
Anthropoid Agents
Michael N. Huhns
University of South Carolina - Columbia, huhns@sc.edu
Munindar P. Singh
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Publication Info
Published in IEEE Internet Computing, Volume 2, Issue 1, 1998, pages 94-95.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/servlet/opac?punumber=4236
© 1998 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

94
JANUARY • FEBRUARY 1998
http://computer.org/internet/
IEEE INTERNET COMPUTING
Until now, this column has focused
on the suitability of agents for infor-
mation applications. We have argued
that communication and sociability
are crucial facets of agents as they
help find and manage information
over networks. But another facet to
agents is emerging—their ability to
exhibit emotion.
In the study of agents, we often
ascribe to them human qualities,
such as beliefs and intentions. These
qualities are best understood as
metaphors that give developers a way
to talk about and design the capabil-
ities and applications of agents.
GETTING EMOTIONAL
Although beliefs and intentions are
the main metaphors used by agent
researchers, they are by no means the
only human characteristics we can
apply to agents. Emotion is another.
Judging from its fundamental role in
human interactions, emotion has
powerful implications for agent tech-
nologies.
Emotional agents are also called
“believable” agents—not to imply
sincerity, but because they suggest a
lifelike persona. We use the term
“anthropoid” to refer to this class of
agents.1Anthropoid agents can act
whimsically, but that only makes
them richer in character, somewhat
like the interesting characters you
might encounter in a Dickens novel.
Agents can be nice, but they can also
be unfriendly or just plain annoying
(like the animated characters so
many Microsoft customers turned
off in their copies of Office 97).
Emotion often gets short shrift in
our society, and is thought to have
no place at all in science. Cognition
(the act of thinking) is placed at odds
with emotion. In fact, calling some-
one “emotional” usually has pejora-
tive connotations. In computer sci-
ence, rational agents are cognitive;
emotional ones may be irrational.
SERVICE WITH A SMILE
So who needs emotion? Well . . .
people do.
Despite all the progress in com-
puting, users have been slow to
accept the technology. They have
often accepted what was thrown at
them, but only under economic
duress. Bringing the technology clos-
er to their emotional needs might
ease this resistance.
So how can we put a human face
on computing? Maybe by putting an
animated face on it! Thus, an interface
may consist of an agent, which has an
explicit presence (for example, as an
on-screen animated figure) and
appears to have a personality. In com-
puter-human interfaces, especially for
education and commerce where a
large variety of people must deal with
computers, an anthropoid agent
might be more inviting. Depending
on the situation, the agent might
appear shy, friendly, stern, or knowl-
edgeable. For example, people might
better accept advice offered politely by
a shy agent, or heed warnings uttered
seriously by a stern agent. And they
might be more likely to purchase
goods or services offered by a friendly,
knowledgeable agent that could
appear empathetic to their needs.
A CAT WITH ATTITUDE
There are also applications of anthro-
poids enabled by the Web itself. One
such application involved the agent
Julia, who participated in chat rooms,
providing directions to users and tak-
ing part in online discussions. Anoth-
er is interactive theater, where the
agents assume different roles in a play
or story, guided by users at remote
sites. Hayes-Roth and colleagues have
developed such agents.2Humans give
the agents general directions, and the
agents improvise according to their
own personal styles.
One of the earliest projects involv-
ing computational emotion was by
Bates and associates, who added emo-
tion as an explicit component of an
agent architecture.3Their anthropoid
cat illustrates the sophisticated behav-
iors possible. The cat has goals, such
as to eat and to explore. It exhibits
happiness and sadness when a goal
succeeds or fails, with the degree of
happiness or sadness depending on
the importance of the goal. When it
appears that a goal might succeed or
fail imminently, the cat will begin to
show hope or fear. Pride, shame,
reproach, and admiration arise when
an action is approved or disapproved
by another agent. If another agent
shoves the cat from a chair, sadness
results from the failure of a relaxation
goal, and reproach arises toward the
miscreant. The combination of sad-
ness and reproach leads to anger.
Similarly, gratitude is a composite of
happiness and admiration.
AGENTS IN TRAINING
Anthropoids are important in simula-
tion environments. Simulators now
constitute the primary training ground
for airline pilots, harbor pilots, nuclear
power-plant controllers, and some sol-
diers. These virtual environments are
typically safer and less expensive than
COLUMN
AGENTS ON THE WEB
ANTHROPOID AGENTS
Michael N. Huhns •University of South Carolina •huhns@sc.edu
Munindar P. Singh •North Carolina State University •singh@ncsu.edu
.

real-world environments, and enable a
wider range of training scenarios. How-
ever, many scenarios involve other peo-
ple, such as in traffic simulations, and
the training is much more effective if
the agents adopting the roles of those
people are believable.4
Cassell and associates show how an
agent can combine a number of inter-
action modalities, such as speech,
facial expressions, and gestures.5The
challenge they address is how to syn-
chronize these modalities both tem-
porally and conceptually. Stone and
Lester report on another implementa-
tion, Herman the Bug, an animated
insect for teaching plant biology to
students in grade school.6Their work
combines ideas from knowledge-
based tutoring with agent technology.
ANTHROPOIDS IN THE
“REAL” VIRTUAL WORLD
Most current anthropoid agents have
been implemented via creative but ad
hoc approaches. A major challenge is
the development of toolkits and
methodologies through which anthro-
poid agents can be engineered in
large, practical applications.
Other challenges include proving
that these anthropoid agents are in
fact useful, and identifying the types
of applications that can most benefit
from their use. Among other criti-
cisms, Shneiderman7notes that once
their novelty has worn off, the ani-
mated characters may not be any
more appealing than other user inter-
faces.
SYSTEMS OF THE BIMONTH
Some implemented prototypes for the
above projects are available via the
Web and for use over the Web. These
include Extempo’s Web-situated vir-
tual bar, based on the work by Hayes-
Roth et al.,2available at http://www.
extempo.com/webBar/. Another is
Virtual Personalities by Michael
Mauldin, available at http://www.
vperson.com/.
The German Research Center for
Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) has devel-
oped the Personalized Plan-Based Pre-
senter (PPP) Persona, which is proto-
typed for various kinds of training and
marketing purposes. This is available at
http://www.dfki.unisb.de/
~jmueller/ppp/persona/index.html.
Check them out! ■
REFERENCES
1. M.N. Huhns and M.P. Singh, eds., Read-
ings in Agents, Morgan Kaufmann, San
Francisco, 1997.
2. B. Hayes-Roth, L. Brownston, and R. van
Gent, “Multiagent Collaboration in
Directed Improvisation,” In Readings in
Agents, M.N. Huhns and M.P. Singh, eds.,
Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, 1997,
pp. 141–147. Reprinted from Proc. Int’l
Conf. on Multiagent Systems, 1995.
3. J. Bates, A.B. Loyall, and W.S. Reilly, “An
Architecture for Action, Emotion, and
Social Behavior,” In Readings in Agents,
M.N. Huhns and M.P. Singh, eds., Mor-
gan Kaufmann, San Francisco, 1997, pp.
225–231. Reprinted from Artificial Social
Systems: Proc. Fourth European Workshop on
Modeling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-
Agent World, 1994.
4. M. Tambe et al., “Intelligent Agents for
Interactive Simulation Environments,” AI
Magazine, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 1995,
pp. 15–39.
5. J. Cassell et al., “Animated Conversation:
Rule-Based Generation of Facial Expres-
sions, Gesture, and Spoken Intonation for
Multiple Conversational Agents,” In Read-
ings in Agents, M.N. Huhns and M.P.
Singh, eds., Morgan Kaufmann, San Fran-
cisco, 1997, pp. 148–155. Reprinted from
Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH Conf., 1994.
6. B.A. Stone and J.C. Lester, “Dynamically
Sequencing an Animated Pedagogical
Agent,” In Readings in Agents, M.N.
Huhns and M.P. Singh, eds., Morgan
Kaufmann, San Francisco, 1997, pp.
156–163. Reprinted from Proc. Nat’l Conf.
on Artificial Intelligence, 1996.
7. B. Shneiderman, “Looking for the Bright
Side of User Interface Agents,” ACM Inter-
actions, Vol. 2, No. 1, Jan. 1995, pp.
13–15.
AGENTS ON THE WEB
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