Open reflective agents

Abstract

We started this work with the deep conviction that systems and agents have to be designed as open information systems (OIS) and should behave as environment sensitive creatures evolving in close accordance with their environment. From this stance, adaptation soon emerged as the central issue, and interoperability revealed quickly as an adaptive process. To tackle adaptation in OIS, we developed ReActalk, a programming framework based on reflection. In designing ReActalk, we made strong commitments on what agent modelling, agent architecture, and agent language ought to be. In this paper we first present the ReActalk reflective architecture and its adaptive mechanisms. These mechanisms rely on reflection to provide a solution to interoperability issues. When they are embodied within an agent, the agent itself is behaving as an OIS. We then show how the adaptive mechanisms enable an agent to participate into any OIS. Finally the commitments we made in the design of ReActalk are discussed and compared to similar approaches to agent modelling, agent architectures, and agent languages.