Designing agent systems

Since 1994 we are told to believe that software agents will become the next revolution in computer science [3]. This change is to occur not only in the ways we construct software [2] but it is also to have a much broader impact on the field of human-computer interaction [1,3]. Unfortunately, as it is easy to see, the revolution prophesized in 1994 does not seem to materialize (regardless of the rapidly increasing number of conferences, workshops, special sessions, publications, etc). It is not the case that when we turn the computer on in the morning, we contact “our agent” to receive a personalized newscast, our day-plan and, on the basis of that plan as well as the weather forecast and knowledge of our dressing-preferences, an advice what to wear (agent ideal servant). Similarly, when creating software for an e-shop we do not utilize pre-existing agent-modules (e.g. advertising agents, seller agents, inventory managers etc.). To the contrary, it is rather difficult to point to a successful large-scale implementation of an agent system.