IEEE Expert Intelligent Agents Article

Then there is the software claiming to be "intelligent agents" because the software is mobile and can go from machine to machine performing tasks on behalf of the human that spawned the agents. One of the more well-know examples of enabling technology for these kinds of agents is General Magic's Telescript. Sun's Java is often also touted as this kind of an agent development technology though its "applets" are even less likely candidates for agenthood than Telescript's remote processes and a characterization of these as "agents" is highly controversial among writers to the agents email list. However, at least one vendor has used the Java technology to build a competitor to Telescript: CyberAgent (not to mention research efforts such as Bill Li's Java-To-Go framework). Let us agree to call some software applications built upon this technology "mobile agents", but understand that the crucial technical meaning is an infrastructure (e.g., a "Listener" for CyberAgent) that allows processes to run securely on foreign machines.