Intelligent Agents and Their Legal Status

Abstract

Improvements in computer, communication and software technologies have stimulated systems that assume manpower functions online or independently. These “intelligent agents” are used for complex and large-scale information searches, data organization and electronic business transaction functions. These machines in question can be directly programmed to perform a particular function without any human intervention so that they can develop relevant reactions in accordance with the signals from the external world or communication networks. The most eminent feature of such software is to display interactions and purposive acts independent from the user. Some of their features can be listed as a) acting purposely without any direct instruction from the user; b) communicating with other sources of information; c) cooperating with other units or entities in order to attain a target result, d) adapting based on previous acts (the method of trial and error), e) reliability