Bio-informatic activity modeling for human-artifacts symbiosis under resource boundedness

We investigate a biologically inspired design of an interface agent that is embedded inside human-artifact interactions rather than as an external observer, and has to work as an intelligent associate for a human user/operator in a time-critical situation like in an emergency. First, recent paradigmatic shifts of artifact design principles are discussed from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. Then, after the idea of Clancey’s activity modeling, we discuss the design principles of a situated interface agent. That is, different from the conventional supervisory agent’s task of seeking to optimize an isolated control task, such an agent has to be able to maintain its identity as an organism living within multiple contexts and looking inwards to consider the the nature of memory and perception, and looking outwards to consider the nature of social action with a human operator. Initially, our prior work using such a design principle is presented, and then decision-theoretic formulations of an interface agent’s activities are provided. This work was presented, in part, at the Third International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 19–21, 1998