Proceedings of ITS’96, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series, Springer Verlag, Berlin. Page 1 Learning evolution and software agents emergence Guy Boy European Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Engineering (EURISCO) 4, avenue Edouard Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France Tel. (33) 62 17 38 38; FAX (33) 62 17 38 39 Email: boy@onecert.fr Abstract. New information technology (IT) is a major challenge to human adaptability. A crucial issue for the integration of new IT in the education system is the enhancement of its role of preserving cultural heritage, improving knowledge transferal and social integration. Software agents are computer programs that can be used to improve learning. Learning is described by five attributes: pleasure, learning how to learn, efficiency, allowing for errors in order to learn, and memory retention. These attributes guide the design of software agents that extend and support understanding, motivation, memory and reasoning capabilities. We will provide examples of agents that add pragmatics to current educational materials. They improve cooperative learning and cooperative design of pedagogical documents. These issues are discussed in the context of a critical analysis of the French educational system and the emergence of new information technology and software agents. Keywords . Software agents, active documents, pragmatics in learning systems, computer-supported cooperative learning, educational memory. 1 Introduction When I was asked to write this position paper for ITS’96, I was both extremely honored and puzzeled due to the fact that I am not a main-stream specialist on the topic. As a scientist, my fields of investigation are human factors and computer science with a particular emphasis (specialization) in the aerospace domain. As the Director of European Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Engineering (EURISCO), I coordinate applied research efforts on training in aeronautics. As a father of two children, I am very interested in the current evolution of the integration of new information technology (IT) in a local education system. In this paper, I will try to clearly distinguish between what is already known and what is plausible, but I will take the opportunity to touch on some important issues related to intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) as I see them. The first question that comes to my mind is: what is intelligent in intelligent tutoring systems? Is intelligence in the system itself? Is intelligence in the interaction between the system and its user? Is intelligence the only capacity of people that would be enhanced by a properly designed ITS? For me, a smart system is a system that is natural to use and enhances my capabilities without too many surprises. As Norman already pointed out: Technology should serve us (Norman, 1993). When I try to figure out the evolution of basic tasks during the last two milleniums, I observe very little change content-wise. We still need to eat, sleep, work for food, take care of our children and grand parents, fight for our freedom, etc. However, the