The Software Agents Group of the MIT Media Laboratory “investigates computer systems to which one can delegate tasks.” Software agents are different from conventional software because they are “long-lived, semi-autonomous, proactive, and adaptive.” Software Agents Group focuses on creating software that “acts as an assistant to the user rather than a tool, learning from interaction and proactively anticipating the user’s needs.” The website describes the group’s various projects that use “common sense reasoning” to Enable the Semantic Web, to improve video came design, or to Find Cultural Differences in Text. Many of the descriptions include screenshots or video footage demonstrating the group’s work, along with related publications.
Various conference papers and journal article are also posted in the Publications section of the website. The resources section provides links to websites describing the Open Mind and ConceptNet projects, which form the foundation of the group’s work. This has been added to Bot Research Subject Tracer™ Information Blog. [From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2005. http://scout.wisc.edu/]