Pre-Conference Proceedings of the Focus Symposium on Collaborative Decision-Support Systems

Collaborative Agent Design Research Center, California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo

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International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics and the Society for Applied Systems Research.

Publisher website: http://www.iias.edu

Abstract

The papers included in these pre-conference proceedings reflect the increasing focus on the utilization of computers as collaborating, decision-assistance partners in complex and often time-critical problem situations. There are high expectations that intelligent software agents will solve many of our current information system woes, such as lack of interoperability, multiple failure points, vulnerability to intrusion, making the right information available to the right person at the right time, and proposing solutions under time-critical conditions. Software agents do not have magical human-like capabilities. It is not possible to simply develop a piece of software code that is capable of reasoning about conditions and circumstances like we human beings appear to be able to do. Computers are not human beings and definitely do not have human capabilities. Yet, it is indeed possible to develop software agents that are capable of accomplishing human-like tasks such as recognizing certain conditions, reasoning about these conditions, forming conclusions, and taking actions on the basis of those conclusions.