Intelligent agents, aren't we?

We are living in an era in which we have intelligent agents to handle many things we do or wanna do. There will be a lot more things possible in the near future from talking to your doctor to umpiring a cricket match. By definition an intelligent agent, in its simplest definition, is software that is given and executes a particular task and reports back to the user. They have been employed to execute tasks on behalf of a business process, computer application or an individual(1). If you thought this is gonna be a passage about those softwares, programs or robots you are wrong. It's about us.

Looking in the mirror.

At one stage or another we all might have asked ourselves the question "what are we?" . Well, some of us define our existence in philosophical terms, some others rely on spirituality, some patient ones are ready to seek it rationally and some others just give it up. The laws of nature seem to be too complicated and randomness seems to be a universal attribute of all objects. Even though physicists have been trying to find out the laws behind the universe they find it difficult to come up with a "theory of everything". Now, you must be thinking, "wait a minute, what bullshit are you gonna talk about?". This is not a theory, these are just some random thoughts popped up in my head.

Some queries.

Are we just some Intelligent agents walking on a planet which is a mere network created just for some properties like sensing, gathering or producing information? Isn't this universe a web of information just like what we are? We find information everywhere we look. We gather it, analyse it and organize it. We even create new information from what we have got. We communicate to each other. Isn't it what we get or expect to get Intelligent agents to do for us? Every other things we do are just to support our existence. The human minds are connected via telephone cables, wireless networks and satellites. That's where terms like collective mind as found by C.G Jung start making sense. We hear people saying, everything is for a purpose. If that's true, what purpose? People believe in supernatural existences like Gods and demons which they were never able to explain in physical terms. Neurologists say God is just another thought induced in the brain(2). And experiments like Langton's ants show very interesting patterns can arise from very simple rules. If we are following rules, what kinda rules are they? Who compiled those rules?

The Super-programmers

If there exist another bunch of beings who use us, what would they look like? How do they interact with us to control information? The possible answer is , 'Exactly like we interact with intelligent agents.' The intelligent agents we have created interact with each other as well. We have agents to predict weather, talk to us about the weather, etc etc. We can be doing the same. We interact with them without knowing we are interacting with them. We respond to our situations. We get chemical reactions going inside our brains every time a stimuli from what we sense from outside our bodies. And we react correspondingly according to what we have known from previous experiences or as per what is programmed as reflex actions. Agents do the same. They interact with their situations, including our queries and responses from other agents according to what is stored in their knowledge base or as per the codes in their program. A doubt can arise in us now, why are we not able to sense our programmers?(if there is any). Are the softwares aware of the programmer sitting in front of the computer? Softwares interact only with instructions, not with the programmer or user. Similarly, they(even they can be some agents/programs) can be interacting with our brain waves at the programming level and with our universe at an application level.

The Protocols

What kind of rules are governing our minds? Let's just think about what kind of thoughts let us do things or not let do things. Our actions are directed or restricted by some factors called morality, rationality, desire, fear etc. These factors are likely to be the protocols that govern the way we behave. For different type of agents, different set of rules. Plants, animals, micro-organisms , etc all have their set of behavioral patterns.

The Conclusion

This is not a subject that can be concluded in five or six paragraphs, but as I've said earlier just some random signals generated in my brain. I'm not stating a theory here. This is more like a comparative study between what we create and what we are. I'm looking forward for responses from other agents.

References used:

(1)www.it-architects.co.uk/a_-_z_glossary_index/Data_Warehousing___BI_Glossary/data_warehousing___bi_glossary.html

(2)http://neuropolitics.org/Conservative-Left-Brain-Liberal-Right-Brain.htm