Matakuliah
Tahun
Versi
: M0284/Teknologi & Infrastruktur E-Business
: 2005
: <<versi/revisi>>
Pertemuan 21
Software Agents for
E-Commerce
1
Learning Objectives
• Describe what software agents are
• Differentiate between various classes of
software agents
• Understand the use of artificial intelligence and
statistical reasoning
• Describe the range of agents available to assist
in the buying process
• Identify various activities in e-commerce where
software agents can be used
2
Overview
•
•
•
•
•
•
What are software agents?
Logic of agent behavior
Types of agents
Information agents
E-Commerce agents
Mobile agents
3
What are software agents?
• Software entities
– Autonomy/agency - without detailed commands
– Purposeful - goal-driven
– Reactive - react to changes in environment. Exhibit
intelligence
– Social and Mobility skill - travel around and interact
with other agents
4
What are Software Agents?
5
Logic of Agent Behavior
• Symbolic Reasoning
if <condition> then <action>
• BeyondMail from Banyan
1) IF <event='mail_receipt'> AND
< email_sender=’CEO’> THEN
<save_in_folder=’Urgent’>
2) IF <save_in_folder NOT Empty> THEN <notify>
6
Logic of Agent Behavior
• Statistical Reasoning
– Market Segmentation
• Clustering according to some characteristics such
a buying behavior, demographic data
– Also called Collaborative filtering
– Used by Amazon.com to predict books that
might prove to be your favorite
7
Logic of Agent Behavior
• Multi-attribute utility theory
used to rank-order different choices such as items to buy
Utility is related to various quality, price and delivery attributes
Utility numbers are calculated for various choices
Various formulas used:
U(x)= log( x+ b)
U(x)= a + bx + cx2
U(x) = (1/k) (1- e –kx)
where U is the utility and x is the measure of the attribute. In
the case of an automobile, x could be price, quality or fuel
economy.
8
Logic of Agent Behavior
• Constraint Satisfaction Approach
• A way to prune a large set of choices
– Hard and Soft constraints
– Options/ choices that violate hard constraints
are removed
– Options left are evaluated in terms of how far
soft constraints violated
9
Logic of Agent Behavior
• Auction Protocols
– English auction
move up
– Dutch auction
move low
– Sealed-bid auction
envelopes
price start low and
price start high and
offers in sealed
10
Logic of Agent Behavior
Auction Engines used in e-business
11
Types of Software Agents
• Information Agents
• E-Commerce Agents
• Mobile Agents
12
Information Agents
• Information Search Agents search engines
• Information filtering agents search few specific
web site and retrieve information relevant to a
user
13
Information Agents
Logic of filtering agents
14
Information Agents
• Information Delivery Agents
– Pull versus Push (scheduled pull). In push, the client-based
software periodically contacting the server for recent news
15
Information Agents
• Information Notification Agents
message arrives by email
16
Information Agents
• Information Reconnaissance Agents
– Letizia at MIT brings to attention to users
pages of interest that are only a few links
away from the current page
– The system builds up a interest profile of the
user and searches neighboring pages of
interest
17