From June to December 2000, researchers at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California (USC) deployed a team of 12 software agents in their office to act as administrative assistants facilitating routine office operations. The agents, also known as Electronic Elves and nicknamed ‘Friday’, were designed to assist their human principal in scheduling meetings, facilitating informal meetings, auctioning group tasks, and ordering meals as a means to testing agent teamwork dynamics. During the experiment, the agents violated the privacy and social norms of the office by publishing their principal’s location information and revealing an employee value hierarchy used to deconflict meetings.

During an experiment of software personal assistants at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California (USC), researchers found that the assistants violated the privacy of their principals and were unable to respect the social norms of the office.

Negligible

Psychological harm

A team of software agents (agent organization) designed to facilate routine office operations, such as scheduling, informal collaboration, and meeting shared goals.

University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute

Administrative and support service activities

Perception, Cognition

Machine learning

decision support, resource optimization, personalization

Marina del Rey, California

University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute

University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute

6/2000

12/2000

Near miss

Accident

No

Schedule data, cellphone GPS data

none

administrative and support service activities