Brownies as Assistants

This contribution discusses the use of assisting agents in interactive configuration systems. With so-called brownies a new metaphor for assisting agents is explored which guides the functional design but avoids the presentation problem. The metaphor can be stretched to include socially interacting agents which can support large-scale configurations. Interactive configuration Configuration problems have a long history in AI going back to the pioneering R1/XCON expert system for configuring computer systems [McDermott 82]. Industrial systems have demonstrated the usefiflness and applicability of the methods developed. However, the division of labour between system and user has been rather simple: The user specifies the problem and the system solves it. Correspondingly simple is the interaction between system and user. Also, this kind of interaction restricts configuration problem solving to areas where the problems can completely be specified apriori. Only recently this restriction has been addressed. In the KIKon project [Erode et. ak 96] an alternative approach is taken: While the user is configuring manually, the system permanently checks the growing configuration. This results in an inverse division of work, but the interaction between system and user is still rather simple. Interaction in K/Kon falls into the category of direct manipulation which, according to [Shneiderman 83], requires the user to initiate all tasks explicitly. Assisting agents suggest another interaction style which has been referred to as indirect management in [Kay 90]. Here, the interaction b~veen user and computer is a cooperative process where all participants may initiate commtmication and perform tasks, instead of unidirectional interaction via commands and/or direct manipulation. The agent becomes an assistant which shares the user’s workspace [Maes 94]. It opexates in parallel to the user. The agent can observe the user, it can make intelligent recommendations, and it can perform explicitly delegated tasks. Using assisting agents in an interactive configuration system is highly desirable. The user can focus on the more difficult parts of the configuration because routine ta.~ks and repetetive tasks are carried out by the agents. While the user determines the principal design his assistants may explore alternatives and suggest improvements. Unlike direct manipulation systems, a Iruly interactive configuration system can profit from agents with very different competences [VoB et at. 92]. The agent presentation problem Agaats with different capabilities must exhibit some degree of personality or character so that the user can reco£nize individual agents, the agents can acquire credibility, and the user can suitably appreciate their contributions. But how should an agent, as a third party beside the user and the application system, present itself at the user interface level? Its appearance will raise certain expectations and reactions of the user and they should conform to the agent’s competence [Erickson 97]. For instance an agent producing its output in natural language might be expected to accept its input in natural language as well. So how to stage agents on the screen? Should they appear with a h, man visage, as an animated character, as a special symbol, or just in a special dialog box? Regarding the variety of agent services in commercial and industrial systems, an absolute answer to this question cannot be expected. 1 Besides such portraying issues there are functional considerations such as how to give the right information at the right time. In the following we present brownies as a metaphor which transports the functional role of agents but avoids the porlraying problem. Furtha’more this metaphor allows to extend a direct manipulation interface of an interactive configurator to an indirect management style. 1 For example, the Microsoft Office Package offers eight different assistants, each with a completely different vL~ualiTation ranging from an animated logo to a cartoon professor. 106 From: AAAI Technical Report FS-97-02. Compilation copyright © 1997, AAAI (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved. Brownies: a metaphor for agent