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. Ð 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