An autonomous agent is an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can perform complex tasks independently.
"[2]According to Maes (1995): "Autonomous agents are computational systems that inhabit some complex dynamic environment, sense and act autonomously in this environment, and by doing so realize a set of goals or tasks for which they are designed.
"[3]Franklin and Graesser (1997) review different definitions and propose their definition: "An autonomous agent is a system situated within and a part of an environment that senses that environment and acts on it, over time, in pursuit of its own agenda and so as to effect what it senses in the future.
At the low end, with one or two senses, a single action, and an absurdly simple control structure we find a thermostat.
Their study explores the human-like appearance agent and high level of autonomy are strongly correlated with social presence, intelligence, safety and trustworthiness.