Culture formation and its issues in personal agent-oriented virtual society

Abstract

In recent years, the combination of communication networks and computer technologies have made it possible to create a cyberspace on the Internet. Recently, several 3D shared virtual spaces and worlds have been developed in which users can share the same experience in a shared virtual environment [1] [10]. The next important step is to extend these environments into a "virtual society."To realize a virtual society, it is important to obtain a large number of users in a virtual world and evaluate various issues based on the populated world. For instance, what kind of functions (especially, social functions) and interface should be supported. For this purpose we constructed a personal agent-oriented virtual society called "PAW^2" (Personal Agent World) based on our CommunityPlace system [1][2]. (Figure 1). PAW^2 has improved upon past virtual spaces based on avatar and text communication by providing autonomous personal agents that interact with users plus a social and environmental infrastructure (Figure 2). We have made several observations about the unique social phenomena in PAW^2 based on our experience operating the system. In this paper, we investigate these phenomena in detail by using non-participant observation method [7] and statistic method. According to the results of observation and statistic data, we clarify what sort of phenomenon that occurred. Then, we discuss the possibility of forming culture in a virtual society and its issues. PAW^2 [3][4] is a 3D personal agent-oriented virtual society

Can We Sell a Virtual Object in a Virtual Society? (E-commerce Evaluations in PAW^2, A Personal Agent-Oriented Virtual Society

“…We used statistical methods to evaluate reasons for users to access PAWˆ2 and found that the main factor was the use of a personal agent (Matsuda & Yajima, 2000), which received very high rankings. We also observed various interesting cultural phenomena emerging in PAWˆ2 (Matsuda, Miyake, & Kawai, 2002). For example, several distinct communities were formed in PAWˆ2 and established rules for living in that virtual society.…”

The Language Grid

“…Matsuda et al developed a virtual society, called PAW, and carried out an open experiment (Matsuda 2002). From the result of the open experiment, they presented the user's profile, the effect of an event, the feature of communities, and the communication tools for using all these together.…”

Can software agents influence human relations?

“…Shared virtual environments with ECAs are becoming increasingly common (for a large-scale commercial example, see [11]), and we (and others-see [19]) see this as an important application area for ECAs. There is already evidence that nonembodied software agents that communicate with human users in text-chat virtual worlds are engaging [2].…”