Autonomy is a characterizing notion of agents, and intuitively it is
rather unambiguous. The quality of autonomy is recognized when it is
perceived or experienced, yet it is difficult to limit autonomy in a
definition. The desire to build agents that exhibit a satisfactory
quality of autonomy includes agents that have a long life, are highly
independent, can harmonize their goals and actions with humans and other
agents, and are generally socially adept. Agent Autonomy is a
collection of papers from leading international researchers that
approximate human intuition, dispel false attributions, and point the
way to scholarly thinking about autonomy. A wide array of issues about
sharing control and initiative between humans and machines, as well as
issues about peer level agent interaction, are addressed.