Tomorrow … we can opt to tell a computer agent what we want, when we want it, and, therefore, how to build a model of us – the collective reasoning of the past, present, and future (as far as we know it). Such agents could screen and filter information and anonymously let the digital marketplace know that we are looking for something.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 column for Wired magazine, Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT’s Media Lab, writes:”Today, marketers reverse-engineer a consumer’s choice to infer why a decision was made. Advertisers cluster such demographics to further guess whether I might be inclined to purchase one soap flake versus another. Tomorrow, this will change. We can opt to tell a computer agent what we want, when we want it, and, therefore, how to build a model of us – the collective reasoning of the past, present, and future (as far as we know it). Such agents could screen and filter information and anonymously let the digital marketplace know that we are looking for something.”
Biography:Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and a popular speaker and writer about technologies of the future, wrote one of the 1990s’ best-selling books about the new future of communications, “Being Digital.” (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Intelligent Agents/AI
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: 000 000 111 – Double Agents
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.03/negroponte_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney