INTELLIGENT AGENCY

We are facing a new technological assemblage, networks of communicatio n and information technology which mediate our lives in new ways. With in the discourses surrounding these new networks, amidst promises of u nlimited agency, power and control, sits the key figure of the intelli gent agent. An intelligent agent is a software program that would act in one's place in cyberspace, as a digital butler of sorts. Drawing on the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour and others, and the philosop hy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, this article analyses the pol itics and possibilities of intelligent agents. It focuses on prominent themes in the discourse about intelligent agents, such as libertarian ism, consumerism, trust, and the abandonment of the body into a digita l realm. Ultimately, the article argues, we need to view technologies, and agency as embodied and contextualized, and abandon the modernist separation of humans and technologies.