Implementing social smart environments with a large number of believable inhabitants in the context of globalization

Abstract

This chapter discusses Social Smart Environments (SSEs) with a large number of believable Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) in the context of globalization. It focuses on SSE architecture, rapid prototyping and scalability with respect to size, geography, and administration. SSE is a software environment installed in a physical place representing, for example, a city inhabited by believable ECAs that interact comprehensibly with each other; believable ECAs are software agents that stand for humans from different cultures. To ensure believability, the ECAs maintain various determinants of processing, for instance, emotional, personal and cultural, identified through an analysis of 35 scenarios of intercultural interaction. This chapter shows implementation of these determinants and development of an SSE prototype on the basis of a specification defining interaction between ECAs. In conclusion, this contribution provides insight into future work addressing, for example, innovation in societies simulated by SSEs.