We examine the design space of auction mechanisms and identify three core activities that structure this space. Formal parameters qualifying the performance of core activities enable precise specification of auction rules. This specification constitutes an auction description language that can be used in the implementation of configurable marketplaces. The specification also provides a framework for organizing previous work and identifying new possibilities in auction design.

This article is a reflection on agent-based AI. My contention is that AI research should focus on interactive, autonomous systems, that is, agents. Emergent technologies demand so. We see how recent developments in (multi-) agent-oriented research have taken us closer to the original AI goal, namely, to build intelligent systems of general competence. Agents are not the panacea though. I point out several areas such as design description, implementation, reusability, and security that must be developed before agents are universally accepted as the AI of the future.

Many bidders in eBay use bidding strategies that involve late bids, incremental bids, or both. Based on field evidence, we discuss the manner in which late bids are caused both by sophisticated, strategic reasoning and by irrationality and inexperience; the interaction of late bidding with incremental bidding; and the relation between market design and artificial agent design.

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence held its 2001 Fall Symposium Series November 2-4, 2001 at the Sea Crest Conference Center in North Falmouth, Massachusetts. The topics of the five symposia in the 2001 Fall Symposia Series were (1) Anchoring Symbols to Sensor Data in Single and Multiple Robot Systems, (2) Emotional and Intelligent II: The Tangled Knot of Social Cognition, (3) Intent Inference for Collaborative Tasks, (4) Negotiation Methods for Autonomous Cooperative Systems, and (5) Using Uncertainty within Computation. This article contains brief reports of those five symposia.

The operation of a human organization requires dozens of everyday tasks to ensure coherence in organizational activities, monitor the status of such activities, gather information relevant to the organization, keep everyone in the organization informed, and so on. Based on this vision, this article reports on ELECTRIC ELVES, a system that has been operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at our research institute since 1 June 2000. Tied to individual user workstations, fax machines, voice, and mobile devices such as cell phones and palm pilots, ELECTRIC ELVES has assisted us in routine tasks, such as rescheduling meetings, selecting presenters for research meetings, tracking people's locations, organizing lunch meetings, and so on. We also report the results of deploying ELECTRIC ELVES in our own research organization.

With the emergence of electronic-commerce systems, successful information access on electroniccommerce web sites becomes essential. To provide an efficient solution for information access, we have built the NATURAL language ASSISTANT (NLA), a web-based natural language dialog system to help users find relevant products on electronic-commerce sites. The system brings together technologies in natural language processing and human-computer interaction to create a faster and more intuitive way of interacting with web sites. By combining statistical parsing techniques with traditional AI rule-based technology, we have created a dialog system that accommodates both customer needs and business requirements.

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence held its 2001 Fall Symposium Series November 2-4, 2001 at the Sea Crest Conference Center in North Falmouth, Massachusetts. The topics of the five symposia in the 2001 Fall Symposia Series were (1) Anchoring Symbols to Sensor Data in Single and Multiple Robot Systems, (2) Emotional and Intelligent II: The Tangled Knot of Social Cognition, (3) Intent Inference for Collaborative Tasks, (4) Negotiation Methods for Autonomous Cooperative Systems, and (5) Using Uncertainty within Computation. This article contains brief reports of those five symposia.

With the emergence of electronic-commerce systems, successful information access on electroniccommerce web sites becomes essential. Menu-driven navigation and keyword search currently provided by most commercial sites have considerable limitations because they tend to overwhelm and frustrate users with lengthy, rigid, and ineffective interactions. To provide an efficient solution for information access, we have built the NATURAL language ASSISTANT (NLA), a web-based natural language dialog system to help users find relevant products on electronic-commerce sites. The system brings together technologies in natural language processing and human-computer interaction to create a faster and more intuitive way of interacting with web sites. By combining statistical parsing techniques with traditional AI rule-based technology, we have created a dialog system that accommodates both customer needs and business requirements. The system is currently embedded in an application for recommending laptops and was deployed as a pilot on IBM's web site.

Serving hors d'oeuvres is not as easy as it might seem! You have to move carefully between people, gently and politely offer them hors d'oeuvres, make sure that you have not forgotten to serve someone in the room, and refill the serving tray when required. These are the challenges that robots have to face in the Hors d'Oeuvres, Anyone?

The 2001 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Mobile Robot Exhibition provided an opportunity for AI researchers to interact and share ideas. Despite some difficulties with environment and timing, the primary objective of disseminating information was achieved. A short summary of each robot demonstrates the variety in form and function among the exhibitions.