ABSTRACT
I used to build agents. In the old days, I built interactive computer charac ters, or animated creatures with idiosyncratic personality, who can express that personality in interaction with human users. To do so I used a pro gramming framework that focused on expressing the agent author's vision of personality through an ad hoc and flexible organization of complex, hand-written behaviors (Loyall & Bates, 1991). This approach excited me because of its openness: It did not impose a rigid theory or structure on the personalities that could be expressed. This minimum-commitment model made possible the creation of arbitrarily complex and idiosyncratic person ality. In this approach, agent design was thought of as craftwork: Authors could manipulate the materials of electronic code to express their unique personal vision of personality and life.
