Re: About the question what a robots is (was Re: PS)

Michael Schlindwein (m_schlin@informatik.uni-kl.de)
Thu, 18 Jul 1996 17:54:20 +0200 (MET DST)


Rob Turk wrote:
>
> Michael Schlindwein wrote:
> > > >Great idea, but again is begs the question, "What qualifies as a robot?"
For
> > > >example, does WebCompass (which retrieves two levels deep to summarize
> > > >findings) count as a robot? What about other types of "user agent"
> > > >interaction?

Sorry for the confusion.
The above text was written by someone else, but I couldn't find the
appropriate mail.

> I agree.
[...]
> Really I'd like to have automated brokers that manage investments etc.
[...]
> People are going to write software
> that -- Heaven forefend! -- may make unfair demands on machines, whether
> by design or by accident, but by communicating about better ways to do
> things the software will improve. The functionality of agents will
> improve, etc.
[...]
> I suppose that I'd like the discussion to focus more on applications

Here I agree and I would like to emphasize that a discussion that focuses
on applications should pay attention to future developments.

The internet/WWW evolves so fast, that it seems wrong to me to only think
at e.g. indexing and link maintenance. Ok, they may cause the most problems
today, but don't forget the future in such a fast growing domain - don't
forget "other types of 'user agent' interaction"...

Regards
Mike