Autonomous agents in user interfaces

In this paper we present novel concepts for user interfaces based on agents actively exploring their environment, including the user's behavior. These autonomous agents are active entities in a hypermedia artwork on the devel opment and artistic challenge of three-dimensional sculpturing on video scr eens and with laser installations. Such an approach challenges current paradigms of user interfaces in a funda mental way. Each individual, users and agents alike, is forced to construct their own concepts and strategies to operate successfully, based on their experiences. The strategies of the agent cannot be conveyed explicitly. Ins tead, they emerge from concepts of the domain, concepts of the users, the a gent's own drives, and the interactions between users and the agent; all to gether they form the main source for the generation of new concepts and str ategies. The history of behavior-based robotics provides us with similar ev idence that active exploration-in particular as opposed to mere deliberatio n-constitutes a necessary step in improving a system's performance.