The amount of time I save by being able to find a piece of information on-line is almost exactly negated by how much time I waste every day by being on-line … The problem with intelligent agents and filters is that they can never do anything more than a crude approximation of my desires and wants. The thing that I do want a machine to solve is something that a machine can’t solve namely, “give me only the e-mail that is essential in my work.” For me to program that is for me to know what is essential in my work, and I don’t know that. It changes every 20 minutes. As an example, I would never in my life program an artificial intelligent agent to tell me what’s happening in Oklahoma City. Yet, all of a sudden last April, a bomb goes off and everything in Oklahoma City is important and essential.
Predictor: Stoll, Clifford
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 Computerworld article, journalist Lory Zottola Dix, interviewed security expert and author Cliff Stoll about the hype over the Internet. In a Q-A format, Dix directly quotes Stoll saying:”I started asking [myself] the obvious question – how many other people are spending more than an hour of their day on nonproductive work because of the Internet? … I started thinking that maybe other people were in the same boat I was. Namely, that the amount of time I save by being able to find a piece of information on-line is almost exactly negated by how much time I waste every day by being on-line … The problem with intelligent agents and filters is that they can never do anything more than a crude approximation of my desires and wants. The thing that I do want a machine to solve is something that a machine can’t solve namely, ‘give me only the e-mail that is essential in my work.’ For me to program that is for me to know what is essential in my work, and I don’t know that. It changes every 20 minutes. As an example, I would never in my life program an artificial intelligent agent to tell me what’s happening in Oklahoma City. Yet, all of a sudden last April, a bomb goes off and everything in Oklahoma City is important and essential.”
Biography:Clifford Stoll was an astrophysicist who also wrote the influential books “Silicon Snake Oil” (1995) and “The Cuckoo’s Egg.” A long-time network user, Stoll made “Silicon Snake Oil” his platform for finding fault with the Internet hype of the early 1990s. He pointed out the pitfalls of a completely networked society and offered arguments in opposition to the hype. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Intelligent Agents/AI
Name of publication: Computerworld
Title, headline, chapter name: An Interview with Cliff Stoll; This Security Expert, Network Pioneer and Best-selling Author is Sick and Tired of Internet Hype
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 85
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne