Designing Humanoid Agents: Some High- Level Issues

Having designed a dialogue-capable agent, and evaluated three versions of this humanoid, it is now time to take a step back and look at the issue of humanoid agent design in a larger perspective. In the real world, physicsÑand the workings of natural design and selectionÑdictate the way multimodal creatures look. In the digital world there is much more flexibility (or so weÕd like to think). This flexibility (along with the fact that computer characters are neither animals nor human animals) leads us naturally to ask ÒWhat is my agent?Ó, or more specifically, ÒWhat kind of creature is this (collection of) software?Ó The question is important for anyone who wishes to converse with an agent face-toface.