Interface agents that learn an investigation of learning issues in a mail agent interface

In recent years, interface agents have been developed to assist users with various tasks. Some systems employ machine learning techniques to allow the agent to adapt to the users changing requirements. With the increase in the volume of data on the Internet, agents have emerged which are able to monitor and learn from their users to identify topics of interest. One such agent, described here, has been developed to filter mail messages. We examine the issues involved in constructing an autonomous interface agent which employs a learning component, and explore the use of two different learning techniques in this context. Submitted to Applied Artificial Intelligence Journal. October 26, 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1 Introduction Agents were once seen as anthropomorphic entities which would assist users with daily tasks. They could be used, for example, to locate information of interest to their user (Kay 1984). Ten years later, many definitions of agents have been proposed. The basic concept of ...