The Net has many more and far dirtier jobs in store for software agents. For example, copyright owners, including every entertainment and publishing company enormous or small will deploy agents to seek out infringing copies of their property wherever it resides on the Net. Marketers of every stripe will have agents on the Net as their eyes, ears and fashion calipers, monitoring online pop culture continuously. Cops will welcome the multiplication of their efforts by software agents, using them lavishly to even the odds against hackers careening through cyberspace, drug dealers, and of course their self-declared main target, online pedophiles. Look particularly for the IRS to use agents to scour the Internet thoroughly
Predictor: Rose, Lance
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 essay for ISPworld, Internet law expert Lance Rose comments about the expected crush of newbies on the Net and how they will influence Internet activity. Rose writes:”[Intelligent agents] are the little helpers who will add that extra touch of convenience to our lives. They will gather up fronds of fresh news for our personalized morning papers, and negotiate airline reservations and schedule changes so we don’t miss a step in our air travels. Nice image, but the Net has many more and far dirtier jobs in store for software agents. For example, copyright owners, including every entertainment and publishing company enormous or small will deploy agents to seek out infringing copies of their property wherever it resides on the Net. Marketers of every stripe will have agents on the Net as their eyes, ears and fashion calipers, monitoring online pop culture continuously. Cops will welcome the multiplication of their efforts by software agents, using them lavishly to even the odds against hackers careening through cyberspace, drug dealers, and of course their self-declared main target, online pedophiles. Look particularly for the IRS to use agents to scour the Internet thoroughly … All these groups and many others will be able to deploy thousands of agents apiece and keep them steadily working the beat, reporting back their findings whenever they see something interesting. Just think, thousands, maybe millions of businesses, each deploying hundreds, maybe thousands of agents. That works out to millions or billions of agents, each active on the Net 24 hours a day …”
Biography:Lance Rose, a lawyer, earned a high profile for his expertise in Internet issues in the 1990s. He wrote “Netlaw: Your Rights in the Online World” (1995). (Legislator/Politician/Lawyer.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Intelligent Agents/AI
Name of publication: ISPworld
Title, headline, chapter name: Legally Online: Noise and the Public Net
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.boardwatch.com/boardwatchOnline/1995/jan95/bwm44.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney