INTELLIGENT AGENCY
- 1 July 1998
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Cultural Studies
- Vol. 12 (3) , 410-428
- https://doi.org/10.1080/095023898335483
Abstract
We are facing a new technological assemblage, networks of communication and information technology which mediate our lives in new ways. Within the discourses surrounding these new networks, amidst promises of unlimited agency, power and control, sits the key figure of the intelligent agent. An intelligent agent is a software program that would act in one's place in cyberspace, as a digital butler of sorts. Drawing on the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour and others, and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, this article analyses the politics and possibilities of intelligent agents. It focuses on prominent themes in the discourse about intelligent agents, such as libertarianism, consumerism, trust, and the abandonment of the body into a digital realm. Ultimately, the article argues, we need to view technologies, and agency, as embodied and contextualized, and abandon the modernist separation of humans and technologies.Keywords
This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit:
- Cultural Technologies and the “Evolution” of Technological CulturesPublished by Duke University Press ,2009
- TelevisionPublished by Taylor & Francis ,2004
- Hiding in the LightPublished by Taylor & Francis ,2003
- Spaces of surveillance: Indexicality and solicitation on the internetCritical Studies in Mass Communication, 1997
- RemediationConfigurations, 1996
- City of BitsPublished by MIT Press ,1995
- Agent theories, architectures, and languages: A surveyPublished by Springer Nature ,1995
- How might people interact with agentsCommunications of the ACM, 1994
- Cultural studies and/in new worlds1Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 1993
- Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-CloserSocial Problems, 1988