Contemporary research in artificial environments has marked the need for autonomy in artificial agents. Autonomy has many interpretations in terms of the field within which it is being used and analyzed, but the majority of the researchers in artificial environments are arguing in favor of a strong and life-like notion of autonomy. Departing from this point the main aim of this paper is to examine the possibility of the emergence of autonomy in contemporary artificial agents. The theoretical findings of research in the areas of living and cognitive systems, suggests that the study of autonomous agents should adopt a systemic and emergent perspective for the analysis of the evolutionary development of the notions/properties of autonomy, functionality, intentionality and meaning, as the fundamental and characteristic properties of a natural agent. An analytic indication of the functional emergence of these concepts and properties is provided, based on the characteristics of the more general systemic framework of second-order cybernetic and of the interactivist framework. The notion of emergence is a key concept in such an analysis which in turn provides the ground for the theoretical evaluation of the autonomy of contemporary artificial agents with respect to the functional emergence of their capacities. The fundamental problems for the emergence of genuine autonomy in artificial agents are critically discussed and some design guidelines are provided.

A growing acknowledgement within a range of disciplines has arisen concerning the necessity of changing our approach to design of IT. The main reasons for this are the increasing challenges involved in designing and maintaining IT systems that are more pervasive and complex than ever, and a growing need for better and more flexible assistance from an omnipresent technology. This paper argues for a bio-mimetic design heuristic for Ambient Intelligence technology, with a specific focus on organizational and developmental issues provided by an interactivist model. The interactivist view provides a model for better functionality together with optimized infrastructure by describing intelligence as rising from adaptive self-organizing and selfmaintaining capabilities. On the basis of the interactivist approach this paper sketches general design heuristics for AmbI and points to future research issues to be dealt with.

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ newideapsych Towards the naturalization of agency based on an

This paper re-examines how primates can learn the rudiments of language. Based on consideration of how robots might simulate their achievements, it is stressed that full immersion in language allows babies and bonobos to use its dynamics in discovering how to orchestrate their bodies in line with adult acts and expectations. As language gets distributed, an infant or bonobo uses something like 'self directed anticipatory learning' to transform itself into a special kind of self-regulating system. Using 'perspective taking' it exploits a social environment that includes both other people and external cognitive props. Close attention to how encultured bonobos exploit 'languaging' show that a lexigram board serves as a computational resource for the production of sounds that, to human ears, fit the circumstances. In humans, related processes use biases that exploit affective strategies based on interpersonal bodily attunement. Drawing on affect and social learning, a bonobo or baby develops increasingly complex ways of contextualizing; it uses past experience to act in ways likely to affect future events. Human infants go through behavioural stages that are self-implicating, self-directing and, finally, self-regulating. It is concluded that those interested in robotics can gain from looking at language as complex joint activity that allows for affect driven shifts in patterns of dual control.