The concept of agency is of crucial importance in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and it is often used as an intuitive and rather uncontroversial term, in contrast to more abstract and theoretically heavily weighted terms such as intentionality, rationality, or mind. However, most of the available definitions of agency are too loose or unspecific to allow for a progressive scientific research program. They implicitly and unproblematically assume the features that characterize agents, thus obscuring the full potential and challenge of modeling agency. We identify three conditions that a system must meet in order to be considered as a genuine agent: (a) a system must define its own individuality, (b) it must be the active source of activity in its environment (interactional asymmetry), and (c) it must regulate this activity in relation to certain norms (normativity). We find that even minimal forms of proto-cellular systems can already provide a paradigmatic example of genuine agency. By abstracting away some specific details of minimal models of living agency we define the kind of organization that is capable of meeting the required conditions for agency (which is not restricted to living organisms). On this basis, we define agency as an autonomous organization that adaptively regulates its coupling with its environment and contributes to sustaining itself as a consequence. We find that spatiality and temporality are the two fundamental domains in which agency spans at different scales. We conclude by giving an outlook for the road that lies ahead in the pursuit of understanding, modeling, and synthesizing agents.

Key words: agency, individuality, interactional asymmetry, normativity, spatiality, temporality

The concept of agency is of crucial importance in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and it is often used as an intuitive and rather uncontroversial term, in contrast to more abstract and theoretically heavy-weighted terms like “intentionality”, “rationality” or “mind”. However, most of the available definitions of agency are either too loose or unspecific to allow for a progressive scientific program. They implicitly and unproblematically assume the features that characterize agents, thus obscuring the full potential and challenge of modeling agency. We identify three conditions that a system must meet in order to be considered as a genuine agent: a) a system must define its own individuality, b) it must be the active source of activity in its environment (interactional asymmetry) and c) it must regulate this activity in relation to certain norms (normativity). We find that even minimal forms of proto-cellular systems can already provide a paradigmatic example of genuine agency. By abstracting away some specific details of minimal models of living agency we define the kind of organization that is capable to meet the required conditions for agency (which is not restricted to living organisms). On this basis, we define agency as an autonomous organization that adaptively regulates its coupling with its environment and contributes to sustaining itself as a consequence. We find that spatiality and temporality are the two fundamental domains in which agency spans at different scales. We conclude by giving an outlook to the road that lies ahead in the pursuit to understand, model and synthesize agents.

Excerpt: We dedicate this chapter to clarifying the central tenets of enactivism and exploring some of the themes currently under development. In this exercise, following the logic of the central ideas of enactivism can sometimes lead to unexpected hypotheses and implications. We must not underestimate the value of a new framework in allowing us to formulate questions in a different vocabulary, even if satisfactory answers are not yet forthcoming. Implicitly, the exploration of these questions and possible answers is at the same time a demonstration of the variety of methods available to enactivism, from phenomenology, to theory/experiment cycles, and to the synthesis of minimal models and validation by construction – an additional thread that runs through this chapter and that we will pick up again in the discussion.

We introduce a series of evolutionary robotics simulations that address the behaviour of individuals in socially contingent interactions. The models are based on a recent study by Auvray, Lenay and Stewart [(2006) The attribution of intentionality in a simulated environment: The case of minimalist devices. In Tenth meeting of the association for the scientific study of consciousness, Oxford, UK, 23–26 June, 2006] on tactile perceptual crossing in a minimal virtual environment. In accordance, both the empirical experiments and our simulations point out the essential character of global embodied interaction dynamics for the sensitivity to contingency to arise. Rather than being individually perceived by any of the interactors, sensitivity to contingency arises from processes of circular causality that characterise the collective dynamics. Such global dynamical aspects are frequently neglected when studying social cognition. Furthermore, our synthetic studies point out interesting aspects of the task that are not immediately obvious in the empirical data. They, in addition, generate new hypotheses for further experiments. We conclude by promoting a minimal but tractable, dynamic and embodied account to social interaction, combining synthetic and empirical findings as well as concrete predictions regarding sensorimotor strategies, the role of time-delays and robustness to perturbations in interactive dynamics.

Key words: perceptual crossing, social contingency, agency, interaction dynamics, evolutionary robotics, simulation modelling.

Knowing that human judgment can be fallible, we propose to distinguish the subjective ascription of a property, such as autonomy, from the genuine fact that an entity is characterised by a certain property, i.e., it is autonomous. In this paper, we take a closer look at this distinction and what it is grounded on, taking a constructivist stance that sees the scientist as an observing subject. We arrive at a notion of fortified ascription, in which knowledge and scientific study of generative mechanisms play an important role, and look at some models of autonomy in the light of this distinction.

Key words: Autonomy, Observer, Ascription, Artificial life, Modelling