Narrowing the gap between humans and agents in e-commerce: 3D electronic institutions

Electronic Institution are regulated environments populated by autonomous software agents that perform tasks on behalf of users. Users, however, are reluctant in delegating full control of critical decisions to agents and prefer to make them on their own. In order to increase trust in agents we propose 3D Electronic Institutions as an environment inhabited by a heterogenous society of humans and agents. We present a novel approach that introduces humans to Electronic Institutions via 3D Virtual Worlds. Such a 3D Virtual World provides an immersive user interface that allows humans to observe the behavior of their agents as well as the intervention in the agents' decision process if necessary. We step beyond the agents view on Electronic Institutions, take a human-centered perspective and concentrate on the relation between humans and agents in the amalgamation of 3D Electronic Institutions.