From: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Multiagent Systems. Copyright © 1996, AAAI (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved. 
                     A Story-Telling                  Intelligent              Agent  Based  on  Minsky’s  "Society  of  Mind"
                           Mauren       F.   M.  Brenner,           Helofsa       V.  da  Rocha         and    Ariadne        M.  B.  R.  Carvalho
                                                     Instituto    de  Computa~o -  Universidade  Estadual  de  Campinas
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                                                            e-maih {maurenb,heloisa,ariadne } @dcc.unicamp.br
                                                 Abstract                                       state of an object may cause other objects’ states to
                           This paper describes a story-telling  agent which                    change. This is done by one or more threads associated
                           is  itself  a multi-agent system composed of a black-                with the blackboard.
                           board structure  and a  number of smaller  agents                       In the story-telling agent, application-specific data
                           which both cooperate  and compete against  each                      correspond to descriptions and pictures of scenes, char-
                           other  to  preemt information  according to  each                    acters, places, etc. and a set of keywords to be presen-
                           one’s point of  view. The agent architecture  is                     ted as "links" to the user. K-lines connect related
                           b~ed on a cognitive  model, Minsky’s Society of                      data items; for instance, the items describing a charac-
                           Mind. The story-telling  agent is  an example ap-                    ter. Information structure is represented by "narrat-
                           plication of this  architecture.                                     ive" frames, which represent the sequential structure
                                                                                                of the story; place frames, which represent physical
                                            Introduction                                        and/or geographical structure; and character frames,
                     Artificial   Intelligence  has been traditionally  concerned               which represent relationships between characters. Re-
                     with making computers behave intelligently,             but  Fisc-         cognizers put objects into an "active" state accord-
                     her  (Fischer  1995) has  suggested  using  AI techniques                  ing to other objects’ states thus forming "reminding
                     to  enable  computers  to  augment human intelligence                      loops" (Minsky 1986).
                     rather    than  mimick it.      Our goal  in  doing  research                 The story-telling agent initially puts some "default"
                     in  intelligent   agent architecture  and design is  to reach              data items in a "hyperactive" state and shows them to
                     intelligence     augmentation through  agents  rather  than                the user. Recognizers react by putting some keywords
                     having truly  intelligent  agents.                                         in  an  "active"  state.     Each internal  agent  "wants" to
                        The Society  of  Mind (SOM) model  (Minsky  1986)                       present  information  according  to  a  "personal  view:"
                     describes  the  mind or  agent  as  a  "society"  of  tiny,                a  "narrative"  agent prefers  to  present  scenes  sequen-
                     mindless units  also  called  "agents,"  organized in  groups              tially,   a  "character"  agent prefers  to  talk  about char-
                     called    "agencies."     Agencies  communicate by  evoking                acters,    and  so  on.  Thus each  one  presents  some of
                     and detecting  configurations  of  agents called  ’~partial                the  keywords to  the  user.  Choosing  a keyword "hy-
                     mental  states."       The SOM model  includes          a  number          peractivates"  it  and causes  the  recognizers  to  "hyper-
                     of  coordination mechanisms related to the activation                      activate"  new data  items,  which are  then  presented  to
                     and recognition of partial mental states. These mech-                      the  user.  Keywords resemble hypertext  links;  however,
                     anisms include k-lines, recognizers, pronomes, frames,                     they  are  "softer"     links,  emerging from the  action  of
                     and p&anomes.                                                              recognizers  which bring  new data  into  the  "focus  of
                                                                                                attention"  of  the  agents  in  the  blackboard.
                                    A  Story-Telling            Agent                                              Acknowledgments
                     The agencies of the SOM model are translated into                          This  work has  been  supported  by CNPq and FAPESP.
                     agents of  a Distributed  Artificial       Intelligence  system,
                     and both partial  mental states  and coordination  mech-                                            References
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