Re: All the Agents Challenge (ATAC) at ISWC 2021

Foaf defines the concept of agent
http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_Agent

I'm unaware of the schema that defines agency...? Or the implications of
the agency of things on other agents, etc.

On Fri, 16 Jul 2021, 10:08 pm Cristian Vasquez, <cristianvasquez@gmail.com>
wrote:

> For me, it's not. A browser is a tool to browse, and (today) it lacks
> 'agency.'
>
> Still, I've asked the question 'for you, what is an agent?' to many
> people in the linked data community.
> Many of them think of the browser as 'the agent' of excellence ;)
>
> On Fri, Jul 16, 2021 at 1:33 PM Martynas Jusevičius
> <martynas@atomgraph.com> wrote:
> >
> > Is Linked Data browser an "agent"?
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 10:13 PM Andrei Ciortea <andrei.ciortea@unisg.ch>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Cristian,
> > >
> > > Apologies for replying so late — these weeks are just over the top. :-)
> > >
> > > Do you have a link to watch the Web seminar?
> > >
> > >
> > > This was a 5-day seminar, some invited talks and demos were recorded,
> but it’s up to the speakers to publish the recordings — with approval from
> Schloss Dagstuhl and following some special considerations.
> > >
> > > One of the seminar participants was Mike Amundsen and Mike's invited
> talk is available here: https://figshare.com/s/e7b83338b9c08bd1753b
> > >
> > > I am not aware of any other recordings that were made available
> publicly.
> > >
> > > I find the idea of a shared Web-space amazing!
> > > Such a testbed would add some joy to developing and compare different
> > > approaches.
> > >
> > >
> > > That’s great to hear!
> > >
> > > Then I had to ask myself, what is an agent in the context of RWW?
> > > Does the agent need 'agency'? I started to be confused ('agent' is a
> wide term).
> > >
> > > And I've been confused regarding this for a long time!.  Some years
> > > ago, I experimented with a program called 'agent' that used linked
> > > data and N3 rules. The main functionalities were:
> > >
> > > 1. To consume/produce hypermedia
> > > 2. To know how to build internal/external states consisting of
> > > combinations of various Web resources in the Web.
> > >
> > > The program seemed helpful, but does it classify as an agent?
> > >
> > >
> > > Well, "what is an agent” is a question that can easily take a bad
> turn. :-)
> > >
> > > I myself am interested in any type of artificial agent — from reactive
> agents to cognitive agents: different agent architectures come with
> different design choices and properties. Different types of agents can also
> co-exist in one system. One classical textbook on multiagent systems that
> discusses different types of agent architectures is:
> > >
> > > Weiss G, editor. (1999) Multiagent systems: a modern approach to
> distributed artificial intelligence. MIT press (see on Google Scholar).
> > >
> > > Then, because I’m focused on open and dynamic hypermedia environments,
> I am also interested in agents that exhibit some level of autonomy. A
> discussion on autonomy that I find interesting is in:
> > >
> > > Castelfranchi C., Falcone R. (2003) From Automaticity to Autonomy: The
> Frontier of Artificial Agents. In: Hexmoor H., Castelfranchi C., Falcone R.
> (eds) Agent Autonomy. Multiagent Systems, Artificial Societies, and
> Simulated Organizations (International Book Series), vol 7. Springer,
> Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9198-0_6 (see on Google
> Scholar).
> > >
> > > I want to find people who want to exchange approaches to build agents
> > > that use linked data; it would probably be easier with a forum or
> > > chat; this would make it easier to collaborate in the long-lived., Web
> > > environment. And probably also enable people from outside academia to
> > > jump in.
> > >
> > >
> > > That’s great to hear! It seems a community is slowly forming, but it
> takes time. Meanwhile, we look forward to see you at ATAC 2021 — and you
> can bring your own environment if the ones advertised with the challenge
> don’t fit ;-)
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Andrei
> > >
> > >
> > > On 1 Jun 2021, at 16:24, Cristian Vasquez <cristianvasquez@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 1:38 AM Andrei Ciortea <
> andrei.ciortea@unisg.ch> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi Melvin,
> > >
> > > Great and yes — this is certainly an area being researched. In fact,
> back in February we organized a Dagstuhl Seminar on "Autonomous Agents on
> the Web" and I think your vision is well aligned with several of the
> discussions we had during the seminar: https://www.dagstuhl.de/21072
> > >
> > > In terms of research, I think many of the pieces of the puzzle are
> already there as contributions in different communities (and some piece of
> the puzzle are certainly missing), but what we need is a concerted effort
> of these communities to align and integrate the various research threads —
> and this was the main motivation for organizing this seminar. We've just
> submitted the seminar report to Schloss Dagstuhl a couple of weeks back, it
> should be published soon.
> > >
> > > In terms of available technologies, I think we still have some way to
> go to get to the vision you are describing — multi-agent systems that are
> Web-scale, open, and long-lived. I think we’ll get there, but of course we
> first need to start somewhere.
> > >
> > > This is where Tobias’ initiative for the agent challenge comes in, and
> this is also where the 2 robots I’ve shared with you come in: one idea that
> came up during the seminar is to set up a shared "live" demonstrator space
> — a deployed, open, long-lived, and geographically distributed hypermedia
> environment that could provide a testbed for trying out ideas and
> identifying challenges. It’s an ambitious task, but we’ve already started
> to work towards it. :-)
> > >
> > >
> > > Hello Andrei,
> > >
> > > I find the idea of a shared Web-space amazing!
> > > Such a testbed would add some joy to developing and compare different
> > > approaches.
> > >
> > > Regarding the challenge, I first looked into the maze; and I thought
> > > about using an existing solver or reinforcement learning algorithm
> > > 'for mazes.' (a 'gym'). Then the problem perhaps reduces to writing a
> > > script that interprets and follows links; or something like that.
> > >
> > > Then I had to ask myself, what is an agent in the context of RWW?
> > > Does the agent need 'agency'? I started to be confused ('agent' is a
> wide term).
> > >
> > > And I've been confused regarding this for a long time!.  Some years
> > > ago, I experimented with a program called 'agent' that used linked
> > > data and N3 rules. The main functionalities were:
> > >
> > > 1. To consume/produce hypermedia
> > > 2. To know how to build internal/external states consisting of
> > > combinations of various Web resources in the Web.
> > >
> > > The program seemed helpful, but does it classify as an agent?
> > >
> > > I want to find people who want to exchange approaches to build agents
> > > that use linked data; it would probably be easier with a forum or
> > > chat; this would make it easier to collaborate in the long-lived., Web
> > > environment. And probably also enable people from outside academia to
> > > jump in.
> > >
> > > Cristian.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > We intend to organize a follow-up online event in July, I’m happy to
> keep you in the loop if interested. I'll get back to you soon with the
> additional materials and documentation.
> > >
> > > Melvin, thanks for your enthusiasm and we look forward to receive your
> submission for ATAC! :-)
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Andrei
> > >
> > >
> > > On 25 May 2021, at 22:11, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 18:52, Andrei Ciortea <andrei.ciortea@unisg.ch>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi Melvin,
> > >
> > > Thanks for sharing this fascinating topic.  I'm very much interested
> in autonomous agents on the read-write web.  I have built a few of these in
> the past, and they seem to lack teeth.  The phrase "where are all the
> agents" resonates with me, and motivates me to try and look for something
> more robust
> > > Browsing the links you provided, lead me to this: Introduction to
> Multi-Agent systems
> > >
> https://cw.fel.cvut.cz/b191/_media/courses/be4m36mas/mas2016-l01-introduction.pdf
> > > Would you say this is a good start for understanding where the
> research on this topic is at?
> > > Would love to read if you could share any links
> > >
> > >
> > > I think the above course is already a nice introduction to autonomous
> agents and multi-agent systems (MAS), another course with hands-on
> exercises & tutorials:
> https://www.emse.fr/~boissier/enseignement/maop20-fall/index.html
> > >
> > > This course is focused on multi-agent oriented programming [1] and the
> JaCaMo platform, which is one of the main platforms for MAS (additional
> documentation and tutorials on GitHub):
> https://github.com/jacamo-lang/jacamo
> > >
> > > [1] Olivier Boissier, Rafael H. Bordini, Jomi F. Hübner, Alessandro
> Ricci, Andrea Santi, Multi-agent oriented programming with JaCaMo, Science
> of Computer Programming, Volume 78, Issue 6, 2013, Pages 747-761, ISSN
> 0167-6423, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scico.2011.10.004. Link to PDF:
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/sdfe/reader/pii/S016764231100181X/pdf
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi Andrei!
> > >
> > > Thanks so much for sharing this, I've read a bit of it, and from what
> I can gather it's a java platform with:
> > >
> > > Jason -- AgentSpeak command and programming language -- Agents
> > >
> > > Cartago -- Like a virtual machine for funning agents -- Environment
> > >
> > > Moise -- OO style way of organizing agents -- Organization
> > >
> > > Thanks alot this is very interesting, and a whole new area for me to
> look at, with a bit of a learning curve.  There seems lots of useful things
> in there that it's possible to reuse
> > >
> > > My interest is along the lines of multi agent systems, that scale to
> the web, and are programming language agnostic, but communicate with each
> other over, for example, http requests, and link to each other e.g. with
> JSON(-LD)
> > >
> > > I'd love your input on this.  My experience of programming web based
> agents is that they have a maintenance overhead, such the autonomy is not
> really practical, I may call the ones I've made semi-autonomous.  This is
> akin to the desktop paradigm, where you might start an app, use it for a
> while and then shut it down (agent lifecycle).  I am quite interested in
> another style of app, where it runs as a daemon, e.g. in the system tray.
> So you run it, and it keeps going in the background.  When you shut your
> machine down it'll stop, and reboot the machine it runs on startup, so it's
> kind of always there, you don thave to worry about it, like a daemon
> > >
> > > Multi agent systems that run more or less as daemons against the web
> as a (read-write) state machine have the advantage of much lower
> maintenance, and interesting emergent features as they become more
> autonomous and interact with each other.  The system itself would be
> modular, with reusable components that could be composed together either
> into a composite agent, or different parts running remotely.  They would
> also adapt to change, and be backwards compatible with the existing web (of
> data)
> > >
> > > So they may not even need a JaCaMo type environment to run in, but
> could reuse the organizational and agent speak features
> > >
> > > Would love to know your thoughts on this, if it's an area people
> research, or a direction researchers in the field might want to look at
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Also looking forward to the environments being released on 22 May.
> Not being an academic myself, Im hesitant to try and submit an agent to
> solve the maze, or turn the lights off in the building
> > >
> > >
> > > If you are interested to hack away with some Web-enabled devices, we
> also have a couple of robotic arms that we are happy to share. :-)
> > >
> > > You can access these robots via HTTP and we have a live video feed for
> each:
> > > https://interactions.ics.unisg.ch/61-102/cam1/live-stream
> > > https://interactions.ics.unisg.ch/61-102/cam2/live-stream
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I'd love to find out how to control a robotic arm with a robot, yes! :)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > One of the robots is hooked up to a lamp that turns on when you
> activate the robot, so you can use it regardless of your time zone (our lab
> is in St.Gallen, Switzerland).
> > >
> > > Let me know if you are interested to use these robots and I am happy
> to send you additional details & documentation.
> > >
> > > Best wishes,
> > > Andrei
> > >
> > > --
> > > Dr. Andrei Ciortea
> > > Interaction- and Communication-based Systems
> > > Institute of Computer Science
> > > University of St.Gallen
> > > https://interactions.ics.unisg.ch/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 21 May 2021, at 23:56, Tobias Käfer <tobias.kaefer@kit.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Melvin,
> > >
> > > Am 21.05.21 um 19:51 schrieb Melvin Carvalho:
> > >
> > > Thanks for sharing this fascinating topic.  I'm very much interested
> in autonomous agents on the read-write web.  I have built a few of these in
> the past, and they seem to lack teeth..  The phrase "where are all the
> agents" resonates with me, and motivates me to try and look for something
> more robust
> > > Browsing the links you provided, lead me to this: Introduction to
> Multi-Agent systems
> > >
> https://cw.fel.cvut.cz/b191/_media/courses/be4m36mas/mas2016-l01-introduction.pdf
> > > Would you say this is a good start for understanding where the
> research on this topic is at?
> > > Would love to read if you could share any links
> > >
> > >
> > > That's a general introduction to MAS, and probably does not reflect so
> much the web part.  Some would maybe think that already single agents doing
> useful things on the web would be a step forward.  A more webby rough
> introduction in which I was involved could be a tutorial at the IoT
> conference [1].  In my echo chamber, we often use Linked Data-Fu [2] for
> rule-based simple reflex agents.  I have CC'ed Andrei who may give you some
> more pointers from his perspective.
> > >
> > > [1] http://people.aifb.kit.edu/co1683/2020/iot-tutorial/
> > > [2] http://linked-data-fu.github.io/
> > >
> > > Also looking forward to the environments being released on 22 May.
> Not being an academic myself, Im hesitant to try and submit an agent to
> solve the maze, or turn the lights off in the building
> > >
> > >
> > > No need to be afraid. We love practical things. The environments
> released are the maze and the building.
> > >
> > > I'm also interested in any submissions to this challenge, including
> evolutionary agents.  This little demo of fish as agents in an evolutionary
> environment with finite resources I really like because it has emergent
> properties:
> > > http://caza.la/shoal/
> > >
> > >
> > > Cool stuff!
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Tobias
> > >
> > >
>
>