The Biology and Technology of Intelligent Autonomous Agents

This book treats the problem of building intelligent autonomous agents. Biology is taken as a major source of inspiration. The book is based on an extraordinarily successful NATO Advanced Study Institute at which leading proponents of the new behavior-oriented approach to artificial intelligence met to establish a solid scientific foundation for the field of intelligent autonomous agents. The meeting was an extraordinary event because it featured not only very high quality lectures but also robot laboratories set up by the AI labs of the MIT and the University of Brussels. The book has three parts. Part 1 consists of papers based on lectures given at the institute, Part 2 of papers based on presentations made or experiments conducted at the institute, and Part 3 of shorter contributions.

The NATO sponsored Advanced Study Institute 'The Biology and Tech nology of Intelligent Autonomous Agents' was an extraordinary event. For two weeks it brought together the leading proponents of the new behavior oriented approach to Artificial Intelligence in Castel Ivano near Trento. The goal of the meeting was to establish a solid scientific and technological foun dation for the field of intelligent autonomous agents with a bias towards the new methodologies and techniques that have recently been developed in Ar tificial Intelligence under the strong influence of biology. Major themes of the conference were: bottom-up AI research, artificial life, neural networks and techniques of emergent functionality. The meeting was such an extraordinary event because it not only featured very high quality lectures on autonomous agents and the various fields feeding it, but also robot laboratories which were set up by the MIT AI laboratory (with a lab led by Rodney Brooks) and the VUB AI laboratory (with labs led by Tim Smithers and Luc Steels). This way the participants could also gain practical experience and discuss in concreto what the difficulties and achievements were of different approaches. In fact, the meeting has been such a success that a follow up meeting is planned for September 1995 in Monte Verita (Switzerland). This meeting is organised by Rolf Pfeifer (University of Zurich)."

This NATO volume treats the problem of building intelligent autonomous agents. Biology is taken as a major source of inspiration. The NATO meeting featured not only lectures but also robot laboratories set up by MIT and University of Brussels.