CSCE 475/875

Collaborative Topic Summary Assignment 1:

Intelligent Agents

Assigned: August 27, 2007

Due: 10:30 a.m. August 31, 2007

(Assignment 5 minutes late will not be accepted)

Summary

This summary is required to have the following sections:

· an overview of the topic – motivations and underlying principles, etc.,

· a list of praises: a description of what you think are the important/useful aspects of the topic

· a list of critiques: a description of what you think are the weaknesses of the topic,

· a list of wishes: what areas of the topic do you think that should be improved,

· a list of questions on material that you did not understand from the lectures and textbook, and

· a response to the stupid question.

NOTE: These lists should be about the topic, not about the way the topic is presented in the class.

Some ideas: What are agents? What constitutes an intelligent agent? How agents and objects are different? What are the different agent architectures?

Stupid Question

Consider an alarm clock that automatically learns the “snoozing” behavior of its human user. Suppose that its objective is to “alarm” the human user efficiently and effectively. By being efficient, it will try to not to ring too many times only to have its snooze button pressed. By being effective, it will be able to wake its human user and get him or her out of the bed. What will it need to monitor in order to achieve the above? What will it need to decide? What will it need to actuate? Be creative and consider as many issues as possible.

Requirements

You are required to use the software I-MINDS to carry out this collaborative writing activity. There is a limit on the number of words allowed for this assignment: 1000 words. Summaries not satisfying this requirement will not be graded. Your topic summary will be graded based on: (1) 10% Overview, (2) 15% Praises, (3) 15% Critiques, (4) 15% Wishes, (5) 15% Questions, (6) 10% Response to Stupid Question, (7) 10% Grammar and Errors, and (8) 10% Requirements.

Your individual assignment score will be graded according to that outlined in the course syllabus.