What are artificial companions? What is a Rascalla or Rascallo?

Artificial companions are computer agents that realize some kind of embodiment, and appear as personalities of their own. They have their own "will", and at the same time try to learn from and adapt to the needs and interests of their human users, in order to be more capable to support their users in fulfilling specific tasks. To achieve this, the agents need to be equipped with cognitive capabilities as memory, learning or reasoning etc. Another important aspect of companions is that they communicate with their users employing natural language dialogue. Our so called RASCALLI agents (Rascalli) -- Rascalla or Rascallo for an agent with female or male appearance, respectively -- are companions that have been developed for demonstration purposes.

RASCALLI is supported by the European Commission Cognitive Systems Programme (IST-27596-2004).

 
 
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