Knowledge Requirements for Human-Computer Collaboration

In order to identify the knowledge required for human-computer collaboration, it is first necessary to have a clear understanding of what it means to be collaborative. Based on the formal definition of collaboration presented in this paper, there are three necessary and sufficient knowledge sources for a collaborative computer system: a model of the task domain, a partial model of the user’s goals, and a rudimentary model of the user’s knowledge. Other abilities often associated with intelligent agents, such as plan recognition and traditional AI user modeling, are still highly desirable but are not strictly required for collaboration.