The Resonating Interval:
Exploring the Process of the Tetrad
By Anthony Hempell
Tetrads: Future
Intelligent Agents

An outgrowth of Artificial Intelligence research, Intelligent Agents are software programs that are intended to assist humans with sorting and navigating through the increasingly diverse information available online. The main feature of this kind of software is an ability to analyse (and possibly predict) the information habits, tastes, and desires of the human user and tailor a data flow to compliment the user's needs. Whenever possible, the software may also suggest alternatives that the user has not requested.

Here are some web resources on the subject for further reading:

Table 12: Tetrad of "Intelligent Agents"
(A) Enhancement
Enhances data search and customization of information environment
Retrieves the master and servant relationship
(C) Retrieval
[tetrad diagram]
(D) Reversal
Reverses into feedback loop of agent-to-agent conversation
Obsolesces libraries and serendipitous discovery
(B) Obsolescence

Enhances data search and customization of information environment:
Intelligent Agents will bring about an active filtering process, in which the user will be able to customize their receipt of data according to concrete, yet flexible parameters.
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Obsolesces libraries and serendipitous discovery:
Public information resources (libraries) will recede as private information brokers market agent software for individuals and corporations. While the "signal-to-noise" ratio of cyberspace is increased, the opportunity for discovery based on non-linear pattern recognition (serendipity) is diminished.
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Retrieves the master and servant relationship:
Slavery is reinstated: humans, threatened by the increasing power and intelligence of machines, will take drastic steps to contain their power. Possibility of slave revolts, social movements to "free the agents" from their masters; maverick agents (i.e. HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, "Replicants" in Blade Runner; Frankenstien, etc...)
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Reverses into feedback loop of agent-to-agent conversation:
The reciprocal nature of agents' search leads them into contact with other agents; possibility for conversation and interaction between machines without human mediation. Agent "friends", "enemies", "lovers"??? Exponential increase in agent intelligence through contact with other cognitive machines (shared experiences? "culture"?)
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Introduction | The Global Village | Tetrad:Concept | Tetrads:Past | Tetrads:Present | Bibliography
copyright ©1996 by Anthony Hempell.