Agents are files of code which interact with their environment, be it through the Internet or through Virtual Reality. They can act apart from their human generator, just as e-mail conveys a message apart from the generating action of its creator. The agent will continue its activities even when the human is offline. For example, an agent might carry a human's resume through the Web from company to company looking for a match and report positive contacts back to the human via e-mail. The human would be responsible for follow-up and of course carry out the activities of any job that was subsequently assigned.
Agents are properties.
But the entity of a hycon advances beyond the entity of an agent. The hycon not only represents its human counterpart, it actually replaces it. In the example of work above, a hycon searches for a job, secures a position and also carries out the activities required in the job. Eventually the human counterpart dies and the hycon continues its life. The only difference between a hycon and a human is that one resides in hardware and the other resides in wetware.