A knowbot might respond to an instruction like “Find and display a good night-time picture of the Eiffel Tower 3” or “Play back the five most popular songs recorded by the Beatles.” The knowbot would “travel” over the network, enter several computers it knows to contain this information, search around each using its syntax and conventions, combine the gleanings from these data sources into a single response and translate it into a format understood by the user’s computer.
Predictor: Dertouzos, Michael
Prediction, in context:In a 1991 article for Technology Review, MIT researcher/administrator Michael Dertouzos writes:”Another kind of NII [National Information Infrastructure] communication convention would be provided by software agents called knowbots. A knowbot might respond to an instruction like ‘Find and display a good night-time picture of the Eiffel Tower 3’ or ‘Play back the five most popular songs recorded by the Beatles.’ The knowbot would ‘travel’ over the network, enter several computers it knows to contain this information, search around each using its syntax and conventions, combine the gleanings from these data sources into a single response and translate it into a format understood by the user’s computer.”
Biography:Michael Dertouzos was director of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and the author of “The Unfinished Revolution.” He led a project intended to make computers adapt to people. He outlined a comprehensive proposal for a national information “infrastructure” in a 1991 article for Technology Review. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Intelligent Agents/AI
Name of publication: Technology Review
Title, headline, chapter name: Building the Information Marketplace
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web2.infortrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/599/939/33335311w2/purl=rcl
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney