Human-Agent Interaction and Machine Learning

Abstract

Human-Agent Interaction as a specific area of Human-Computer Interaction is of primary importance for the development of systems that should cooperate with humans. The ability to learn, i.e., to adapt to preferences, abilities and behaviour of a user and to peculiarities of the task at hand, should provide for both a wider range of application and a higher degree of acceptance of agent technology. In this paper, we discuss the role of Machine Learning as a basic technology for human-agent interaction and motivate the need for interdisciplinary approaches to solve problems related to communication with artificial agents for task specification, teaching, or information retrieval purposes.