Making sense out of agents

F YOU’RE LIKE MOST of us, these days you’re hearing about agents in virtually every computer publication you read. Even the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are talking about “intelligent agents” that will revolutionize the Internet. Is all this hype, or is there a serious core to agent research that deserves all the attention? To be honest, these days, I’m not really sure. What I do know is that many aspects of