Ladies And Gentlemen, Start Your ShopBots

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January 06, 2000 (2:28 PM EST)

By Mo Krochmal,

On your mark, get set, negotiate.

The artificial intelligence laboratory at the University of Michigan is organizing a competition to find a champion software-based shopping agent.

The shop-till-you-drop software king will be crowned at a computer science conference in Boston in July, said Michael Wellman, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan and an organizer of the contest.

"Anybody who agrees to play by the rules can enter," Wellman said.

The prize in the competition, which has picked up sponsorship from IBM and Trading Dynamics, is simply fame and glory, he said.

Contest rules and entry are available at http://tac.eecs.umich.edu/index.html.

Given the explosive growth of Internet-based trading markets -- technological Web-based environments that automate processes like purchasing and procurement between companies -- it may also lead to business opportunities.

The contest will test technologies that are just now starting to be developed as an offshoot of the move to automated markets.

"We are trying to look ahead with a more complex scenario that any program trader can do right now," Wellman said.

Agents will complete travel arrangements by booking flights and hotel rooms and purchasing tickets to entertainment events through electronic auctions.

"This is a natural piggyback on trading forums," Wellman said. "There needs to be auction systems in place and the next natural thing is that someone will write programs to navigate and play around on them. Let's say I want to buy a Beanie Baby and there are a dozen auctions going on; I write one program that does it all for me, as a way of watching several markets."