Robert Trappl - Böcker

This volume began with a workshop of the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence held in 2001. Concerned with embodied agents as cultural objects and subjects, the book is divided into three parts. It begins by drawing attention to the cultural embeddedness of technology in general and agent design in particular, as a reminder that there cannot be an agent without culture. The section concludes that agent systems not only can be used to establish a shared understanding, but can also promote the diversity of understanding and identity.Part II consists of chapters dealing with design concepts and reflections on cross-cultural believability. It suggests how an agent's behavior may be adapted to the cultural context of application while maintaining consistency and describes an approach based on the OCC model--which is widely known and used in the embodied agents research community. Next, the section suggests that Affect Control Theory--an empirically-based, mathematically-elaborated perspective on microsociology--can be incorporated into agents in order to give them a capacity for normative role behaviors and emotional displays. Subsequent chapters pass on from more general considerations to the design and implementation of cross-cultural characters and present virtual character design from the perspective of the artist and the practitioner in stressing that corporate culture and audience culture(s) both guide the design choices, but the resulting culturally adapted agent is "handcrafted." It ends with a chapter that reports cross-cultural user studies made in the UK, Austria, and Croatia. Part III discusses the potential of agents as mediators in intercultural communication. It includes an overview of the ways in which embodied agents are and could be used to coach the acquisition of intercultural communication skills, followed by a chapter that suggests agents could be used to intentionally mold intercultural communication. The last cha

Sadly enough, war, conflicts and terrorism appear to stay with us in the 21st century. But what is our outlook on new methods for preventing and ending them? Present-day hard- and software enables the development of large crisis, conflict, and conflict management databases with many variables, sometimes with automated updates, statistical analyses of a high complexity, elaborate simulation models, and even interactive uses of these databases.In this book, these methods are presented, further developed, and applied in relation to the main issue: the resolution and prevention of intra- and international conflicts. Conflicts are a worldwide phenomenon. Therefore, internationally leading researchers from the USA, Austria, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and Switzerland have contributed.

A Construction Manual for Robots' Ethical Systems

This book will help researchers and engineers in the design of ethical systems for robots, addressing the philosophical questions that arise and exploring modern applications such as assistive robots and self-driving cars.The contributing authors are among the leading academic and industrial researchers on this topic and the book will be of value to researchers, graduate students and practitioners engaged with robot design, artificial intelligence and ethics.

This book presents selected tutorial lectures given at the summer school on Multi-Agent Systems and Their Applications held in Prague, Czech Republic, in July 2001 under the sponsorship of ECCAI and Agent Link. The 20 lectures by leading researchers in the field presented in the book give a competent state-of-the-art account of research and development in the field of multi-agent systems and advanced applications. The book offers parts on foundations of MAS; social behaviour, meta-reasoning, and learning; and applications.

This volume contains the texts of 26 lectures and contributions to the program of the International Summer School on Advanced Topics in Artificial Intelligence held in Prague, Czechoslovakia, July 6-17, 1992. The summer school was intended for (postgraduate) students, researchers and all those who want to learn about recent progress in both theoretical and applied AI. The papers in the volume are organized into nine parts: Introduction - Logic and logic programming - Machine learning - Planning and scheduling - uncertainty - Second generation expert systems and knowledge engineering - Qualitative resoning - Neurocomputing - Natural language and interfaces.

Progress in computer animation has gained such a speed that, before long, computer-generated human faces and figures on screen will be indistinguishable from those of real humans. The potential both for scripted films and real-time interaction with users is enormous. However, in order to cope with this potential, these faces and figures must be guided by autonomous personality agents. This carefully arranged volume presents the state of the art in research and development in making synthetic actors more autonomous. The papers describe the different approaches and solutions developed by computer animation specialists, computer scientists, experts in AI, psychologists and philosophers, from leading laboratories world-wide. Finally, a bibliography comprising more than 200 entries enable further study.

In most scenarios of the future a personalized virtual butler appears. and which methods, especially in artificial intelligence, have to be developed further and in which direction in order to create a virtual butler in the foreseeable future?

Sadly enough, war, conflicts and terrorism appear to stay with us in the 21st century. But what is our outlook on new methods for preventing and ending them? Present-day hard- and software enables the development of large crisis, conflict, and conflict management databases with many variables, sometimes with automated updates, statistical analyses of a high complexity, elaborate simulation models, and even interactive uses of these databases.In this book, these methods are presented, further developed, and applied in relation to the main issue: the resolution and prevention of intra- and international conflicts. Conflicts are a worldwide phenomenon. Therefore, internationally leading researchers from the USA, Austria, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and Switzerland have contributed.

The 210 articles which are divided into 18 sections in this new reference work represent the most recent findings in cybernetics and systems research. It brings together contributions from leading scientists from all over the world — Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Australia. This volume therefore gives a broad spectrum of the ongoing research worldwide.Topics covered in the 18 sections are: General Systems Methodology; Mathematical Systems Theory; Computer Aided Process Interpretation; Fuzzy Sets, Approximate Reasoning and Knowledge-based Systems; Designing and Systems; Biocybernetics and Mathematical Biology; Cybernetics in Medicine; Cybernetics of Socioeconomic Systems; Systems, Management and Organization; Cybernetics of National Development; Communication and Computers; Connectionism and Cognitive Processing; Intelligent Autonomous Systems; Artificial Intelligence; Impacts of Artificial Intelligence.