There is an immense philosophical literature dealing with the notions of normativity and agency, as well as a sizeable and rapidly growing scientific literature on the topic of autonomous agents. However, there has been very little cross-fertilization between these two literatures. As a result, the philosophical literature tends to assume a somewhat outdated mechanistic image of living things, ...

The feeling that we are agents, intentionally making things happen by our own actions, is foundational to our understanding of ourselves as humans. People's metacognitions of agency were investigated in 4 experiments. Participants played a game in which they tried to touch downward scrolling Xs and avoid touching Os. Variables that affected accuracy included speed of the scroll, density of the ...

Recently several authors have suggested that affordances are not mere possibilities for action but can also invite behavior. This reconceptualization of affordances asks for a reconsideration of the ecological approach to agency. After a portrayal of the role of agency in ecological psychology, we draw upon phenomenology to reveal what it means for an agent to be invited by affordances. We sket...

In a common agency game a set of principals promises monetary transfers to an agent which depend on the action he will take. The agent then chooses the action, and is paid the corresponding transfers. Principals announce their transfers simultaneously. This game has many equilibria; Bernheim and Whinston ([1]) prove that the action chosen in the coalition-proof equilibrium is e±cient. The coali...

Successful negotiators look beyond a purely utilitarian view. We propose a new agent architecture that integrates the utilitarian, information, and semantic views allowing the definition of strategies that take these three dimensions into account. Information-based agency values the information in dialogues in the context of a communication language based on a structured ontology and on the not...

A general model of dynamic common agency with symmetric information is considered. The set of truthful Markov perfect equilibrium payoffs is characterized and the efficiency properties of the equilibria are established. A condition for the uniqueness of equilibrium payoffs is derived for the static and the dynamic game. The payoff is unique if and only if the payoff of each principal coincides ...

Economics is only the beginning of the puzzle for successful international expansion by food-service firms. As depicted in the accompanying case study, Outback Korea seems to have considered such other factors as local culture and proper entry strategy.

2. Unlike the US, the USSR appears to favor intercept of IBMs and ICBM6at altitudes above ' 130,000 feet, possibly for protection of the ground area against full scale detonation of the target warhead. I At least one popular Soviet book has also indicated such an intercept altitude. This concept ignores the advantages of "atmospheric sorting" as an aid to deccy discrimination; there Is no.indic...

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In the setting of outcome oriented decision taking (OODT), decisions are scarce events occurring in between of many other events which are not decisions. Activities of and agency by an agent may occur without any decisions being taken by that agent, with choice and action determination as the only mechanisms for actively resolving uncertainty about future behavior. Such behaviour will be referr...