By Sean Henahan, Access Excellence

Los Angeles, CA (1/12/97) Sunday, Jan 12, 1997, is "Hal-Day," marking the activation day of the friendly but sinister robot HAL 9000 of Arthur C. Clarke's "2001". While this particular prediction of Clarke's has yet to materialize, "intelligent agents" are beginning to appear in labs and factories.

"People in a number of fields, including robotics, computer science, and electronic entertainment, all recognize the need for computer systems that can take the initiative. We now know quite a lot about how to build systems that can operate autonomously, and we are seeing some very interesting applications being developed," notes computer specialist Lewis Johnson of the University of Southern California.

Some examples of decision-making robots now in existence include:

• A space probe from NASA that will be able to plan maneuvers and experiments without continual control from the ground

• An agent called ShopBot from the University of Washington which can do comparison shopping on the internet

• Smart animated puppets from Stanford that collaborate with children to improvise stories

• An agent called Steve from USC, inspired by the `angel' in the movie "Disclosure", which acts as an instructor within a virtual reality training system

• An agent named Guardian developed by researchers at Stanford and the Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden who helps doctors monitor their patients

"Agents will bring about a revolution," says Pattie Maes of MIT. "Right now, only a privileged few can afford the luxury of experts looking after their interests. But there is a straight line from software we will see at the Agents '97 conference to agents that will give everyone this kind of specialist help."

Maes and Johnson are co-chairs of an upcoming conference, the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, being held in Los Angeles February 5-8.

"Agents-as-characters will be ubiquitous in tomorrow's online products and environments," says Program Chair Barbara Hayes-Roth of Stanford University. "Instead of wandering alone through today's lifeless web sites and virtual worlds, we will be greeted, served, and entertained by synthetic characters. Like their human counterparts in the real world, these characters will play their roles with personality and style."

While some researchers believe the hardware currently available is sufficient to make an intelligent robot, the sticking point has been in understanding the nature of human intelligence and decision making. While some research groups are exploring methods to make a computer emulate human thought, other groups are attempting to create computers that think in their own terms.

Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 was made into an Academy Award winning Academy Award-winning film directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1968. A mission to Jupiter goes wrong when HAL9000, a well-mannered supercomputer that greets people by first name, goes berserk and starts eliminating the human crew members. A sequel by Clarke, 3001, is expected soon.