Human-agent collectives

We live in a world where a host of computer systems, distributed throughout our physical and information environments, are increasingly implicated in our everyday actions. Computer technologies impact all aspects of our lives and our relationship with the digital has fundamentally altered as computers have moved out of the workplace and away from the desktop. Networked computers, tablets, phones and personal devices are now commonplace, as are an increasingly diverse set of digital devices built into the world around us. Data and information is generated at unprecedented speeds and volumes from an increasingly diverse range of sources. It is then combined in unforeseen ways, limited only by human imagination. People’s activities and collaborations are becoming ever more dependent upon and intertwined with this ubiquitous information substrate. As these trends continue apace, it is becoming apparent that many endeavours involve the symbiotic interleaving of humans and computers. Moreover, the emergence of these close-knit partnerships is inducing profound change. Rather than issuing instructions to passive machines that wait until they are asked before doing anything, we will work in tandem with highly inter-connected computational components that act autonomously and intelligently (aka agents). As a consequence, greater attention needs to be given to the balance of control between people and machines. In many situations, humans will be in charge and agents will predominantly act in a supporting role. In other cases, however, the agents will be in control and humans will play the supporting role. We term this emerging class of systems human-agent collectives (HACs) to reflect the close partnership and the flexible social interactions between the humans and the computers. As well as exhibiting increased autonomy, such systems will be inherently open and social. This means the participants will need to continually and flexibly establish and manage a range of social relationships. Thus, depending on the task at hand, different constellations of people, resources, and information will need to come together, operate in a coordinated fashion, and then disband. The openness and presence of many distinct stakeholders means participation will be motivated by a broad range of incentives rather than diktat. This article outlines the key research challenges involved in developing a comprehensive understanding of HACs. To illuminate this agenda, a nascent application in the domain of disaster response is presented

Trust and Privacy Permissions for an Ambient World

Ambient intelligence (AmI) and ubiquitous computing allow us to consider a future where computation is embedded into our daily social lives. This vision raises its own important questions and augments the need to understand how people will trust such systems and at the same time achieve and maintain privacy. As a result, we have recently conducted a wide reaching study of people’s attitudes to potential AmI scenarios with a view to eliciting their privacy concerns. This chapter describes recent research related to privacy and trust with regard to ambient technology. The method used in the study is described and findings discussed

Shopbots, Powershopping, Powersales: New Forms of Intermediation in E-Commerce - An Overview -

With the advent and proliferation of the Internet many aspects of business and market activities are changing. New forms of intermediation also called cybermediaries are becoming increasingly important as a coordinator of interaction between buyers and sellers in the electronic market environment. Especially the overwhelming abundance of information offered by the Internet promotes the development of new intermediarie like malls, shopbots, virtual resellers etc. This paper provides a detailed overview of different new forms of cybermediation and illustrates their influence on consumer choice, firm pricing and product differentiation strategies.comparison shopping, cybermediaries, e-commerce, shopbots

“Software agents and haunted media : the twitter bot as political actor"

This report examines the rhetorical construction of Twitter bots as nonhuman political agents in press coverage of the 2016 U.S. election. It takes the rhetorical framing of “the Twitter bot” as a case study to argue that Twitter bots are a contemporary example of what media historian Jeffrey Sconce calls “haunted media” -- a communication technology that has been culturally ascribed an “uncanny” “agency.” First, this report provides a comparative close reading of two pieces from The Atlantic and The New York Times as examples of mainstream press coverage of bots shortly before and after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Second, drawing on Sconce’s analysis of nineteenth and twentieth century media ecologies, it argues that “the Twitter bot” has been rhetorically constructed as haunted media through discourses that are inseparable from larger political narratives. The third and final section speculates on possible theoretical frameworks to expand this project in further inquiries. This report aims to demonstrate that haunted media narratives predate and persist beyond a specific election cycle or medium, and to argue that the construction of “haunted media” occurs alongside constructed concepts of democracy in our technologically mediated society. In doing so, this report contributes to the field of rhetoric of digital technology by bringing it further into conversation with political rhetoric.Englis

“Searching ……”

The Internet is a global collection of computer networks that in collaboration provides a powerful communications service and a comprehensive hierarchy of accessible information to millions of users worldwide. The Internet is used as an information retrieval mechanism by millions of different people across the globe. On submitting a request for information, a user can be overwhelmed by thousands of results that may have some relevance but may not be valuable to the user. The process of information retrieval on the Internet is a computing subject of interest to the general public