The return of Agent Ruby presents an agent of the Artificial Intelligent Web that is shaped by encounters with users at the same time that it reflects these encounters. Thus, the work is simultaneously part of the real and virtual worlds. Ruby exchanges ideas with the users, remembering their questions and their names and managing to recognize their voices and to react through different moods, to demonstrate whether it likes them or not. Its mood can also be directly affected by traffic on the web. Agent Ruby is classified as being for servers of users and can be downloaded into the computers of users or into smart phones with Palm OS. It is multiplatform, integrating the Windows, iOS and Palm operating systems.

According to Lynn Hershman Leeson, Agent Ruby was planned to have a life cycle of self-perpetuation in three phases: 1 ) The Web Site is the hub, the basis on which the entity researches and returns the communication. 2 ) The Transmission/Reproduction Stations allow users to replicate Agent Ruby in their palmtops, directly exchanging information. 3 ) The Ruby Speech Synthesis and Voice Recognition allows users to talk directly with Ruby. They can also insert information into a site that will be posted to a cumulative billboard, revealing an overview of the worldwide concerns and the shapes of patterns assumed by this information.

Agent Ruby will thus “challenge the legality of the ownership of genetic DNA, creating a virtual entity composed of the aesthetics, experiences and interests of the users. This ‘Tamagotchi-like creature’ will be an Internet-bred construction of identity that will flesh out through cumulative virtual use, reflecting the global choices of Internet users,” says Hershman.

Agent Ruby can be downloaded to the users’ portable devices through WideRay beaming stations. Visitors to museums can point their portable digital assistant (PDA) at the WideRay Jack mobile caching server to download this application. WideRay furnishes the network infrastructure to allow the high-speed transmission of data and applications for portable devices at that locale.