I hope agents will make people feel more comfortable dealing with the overload of information, more in control. Confident agents are working on their behalf, are reliable, and never become tired; they are always looking to help the user.
Predictor: Maes, Pattie
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Scott Berkun, a SI/Usability specialist at Microsoft, interviews artificial intelligence expert Pattie Maes, a leader in intelligent-agent research. Berkun quotes Maes saying:”I don’t think it will be long [before the intelligent-agent-based mail system I developed becomes a product] – I suspect in the next two years. I hope agents will make people feel more comfortable dealing with the overload of information, more in control. Confident agents are working on their behalf, are reliable, and never become tired; they are always looking to help the user.”
Biography:Pattie Maes , a researcher at MIT’s Media Lab, was a founder and board member of Firefly Network, Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. one of the first companies to commercialize personalization and profiling technology (Firefly was acquired by Microsoft in 1998). She was also a founder and a board member of Open Ratings, Inc., a provider of performance data on businesses for B2B ecommerce. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Intelligent Agents/AI
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Agent of Change: Pattie Maes Believes Software Agents Are Ready for Prime Time
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.04/maes_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney
