Dear Tom,
I hope I'm not being wearisome in expressing these ad-lib thoughts. I
just wanted to say that the word "agent" also has the meaning you
require from "actor". From the entries for "agent" in my dictionary,
two are relevant here:
1. a person who acts on behalf of another person, business,
government, etc
2. a person or thing that acts or has the power to act
Since it is very fashionable to cite dictionaries in (agent) papers
these days, I have read a few papers in the MAS literature which cite
meaning 1 (only). This is wrong, in my opinion. To use the word
"agents" in MAS, one must be referring to meaning 2. Note that for
the problem of whether the goals are the agent's own or someone
else's, there is the very nice distinction of "agents" and
"autonomous agents".
The problem I see with "actor" is that this word is exclusively
related to people who act in plays, films, etc. And you certainly
don't mean that the agents in your social simulations are just
acting, so that when they are off the simulation they are different
"agents", i.e., have different goals, personalities, etc. and are
only then being true to themselves! :-))) Actually, I think it would
be great to create "acting agents" in this sense.
Kindest regards,
Rafael
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