In a sociological sense agents are persons who act in the name of another person by the authority from him. Agent-oriented programming systems are more and more used to drive complex media structures, thus the sociological aspect is becoming a feature proper of computers other than social systems. In considering the level of agency of a determinate apparatus Rammert distinguish five different levels of agency each corresponding to a certain performance of the technical elements involved. The diagram below show this scale associated with some examples of these systems from different technological domains.
LEVEL OF AGENCY
DESCRIPTION
EXAMPLES
Passive
Instruments completely moved from outside
Hammer; Punching cards
Semi-active
Apparatus with one aspect of self-acting
Machine tool; Record player
Re-active
Systems with feedback loops
Adaptive heating system
Pro-active
Systems with selfactivating programs
Car stabilisation; Help agent
Co-operative
Distributed and selfcoordinating systems
Mobile robots
Table 2: Level of agency for technical objects (Rammert 2008)
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