Page 50 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

Modeling Social Relationship 33

Figure 3.2. Four phases of grooming

perceives its environment, and makes decisions based on its own goals, and that
is the only form of control for agents.
Further, agents may act continuously, and their behavior is not constrained
to be synchronized with the user or other agents.
Constraint by commitments. A social agent is also constrained by any
commitments it has made to other agents. In addition, we may have initially
programmedit tobeconstrained by thegeneral social commitmentsof the social
group.
Voluntary control. The joint action is “voluntary” in the sense that each
agent is controlled only by its own goals, plans and knowledge, and makes its
own choices. These choices will be consistent with any commitments, and we
are thus assuming that usually some choice exists after all such constraints are
taken into account.
Situatednessof action. However theactionof eachagent is conditional upon
what it perceives. If the external environment changes, the agent will change
its behavior. This action is situated in the agent’s external environment, to the
extent that its decisions are dependent on or determined by this environment.
Thus, an agent is to some extent controlled by its environment. Environmen-
tal changes cause the agent to make different choices. If it rains, the agent will
put its raincoat on, and if I stop the rain, the agent will take its raincoat off.