Allocating the risk of software failures in automated message systems (autonomous electronic agents)

Abstract

A marvel of electronic commerce is an increase in the active participation of unattended computer systems in the negotiation and formation of agreements. Computers today can, and already are, helping their human users to make better decisions and negotiate more profitable deals. Drawing from their role online, which role closely resembles that of human agents in the real world, these devices have earned the name electronic agents. The 1990s saw much talk about the so-called information superhighway, which is defined as the state of affairs in which 'information and communication networks give access to almost any kind of information at any time virtually anywhere in the world'. The realisation of the information superhighway transformed the internet from a simple medium of communication into a virtual marketplace. This virtual market, also known as an information economy, is filled to the brink with information about sellers, buyers, goods, services and their prices. No human can personally search, collect, analyse and use all this information without a waste of time, transactional costs and profits. As Nimmer eloquently explains '[h]uman choices are a potentially inaccurate, always slower element of a transaction'. For this reason, as electronic commerce increasingly becomes attractive for business, human involvement will not only become undesirable, it will be actively discouraged. To conquer the obstacles of the information economy, businesses are increasingly resorting to automated message systems. With automated message systems, complex transactions, being transactions that involve extensive negotiations and comparisons, can be performed faster and at much lower costs than by human agents.