Knowledge Robots for Knowledge Workers: Self-Learning Agents Connecting Information and Skills

Abstract

The use of a desktop computer is restricted in many ways for the ordinary person today. People are not able to cope with the exponential growth of information and the increasing speed of information growth and business processes made possible by information and communication technologies. People have lost control over the information universe or infoverse. Intelligent technical support, not only for information storage and retrieval, but also for information selection, process planning, and decision support is needed. It is predicted that smart and mobile computing units embedded in a variety of appliances, such as TV sets and cars, will bring computing power and the common users of these intelligent appliances closer to each other by using natural language and social skills together with computer mediated communication. A general architecture of a knowledge robot or knowbot is described, based on a multi-agent platform and distributed computational intelligence. Knowbots consist of self-learning artificial brains connected to input sensors and output actuators of which speech recognition and synthesis are used to connect to networks of people. They have access to other software agents and computer programs through direct access or a multi-agent platform. A newly defined partnership between people and machines equipped with knowbots are a way to keep in control of the exploding infoverse.