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Chapter 12

ELECTRIC ELVES

Adjustable Autonomy in Real-World Multi-Agent
Environments

David V. Pynadath and Milind Tambe
University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute

Abstract Through adjustable autonomy (AA), an agent can dynamically vary the degree
to which it acts autonomously, allowing it to exploit human abilities to improve
its performance, but without becoming overly dependent and intrusive. AA
research is critical for successful deployment of agents to support important
human activities. While most previous work has focused on individual agent-
human interactions, this paper focuses on teams of agents operating in real-
world human organizations, as well as the novel AA coordination challenge that
arises when one agent’s inaction while waiting for a human response can lead
to potential miscoordination. Our multi-agent AA framework, based on Markov
decision processes, provides an adaptive model of users that reasons about the
uncertainty, costs, and constraints of decisions. Our approach to AA has proven
essential to the success of our deployed Electric Elves system that assists our
research group in rescheduling meetings, choosing presenters, tracking people’s
locations, and ordering meals.

1. Introduction
Software agents support critical human activities in intelligent homes [6],
electronic commerce [2], long-term space missions [3], etc. Future human or-
ganizations will beeven more highly agentized, withsoftwareagentssupporting
information gathering, planning, and execution monitoring, as well as having
increased control of resources and devices. This agentization will assist orga-
nizations of all types, whether military, corporate, or educational. For example,
in a research institution, agentization may facilitate meeting organization, paper
composition, software development, etc. We envision agent proxies for each
person within an organization. Thus, for instance, if an organization requires
a deployment of people and equipment, then agent proxies could volunteer on