AI is about to completely change how you use computers

To do any task on a computer, you have to tell your device which app to use. You can use Microsoft Word and Google Docs to draft a business proposal, but they can’t help you send an email, share a selfie, analyze data, schedule a party, or buy movie tickets. And even the best sites have an incomplete understanding of your work, personal life, interests, and relationships and a limited ability to use this information to do things for you. That’s the kind of thing that is only possible today with another human being, like a close friend or personal assistant.

In the next five years, this will change completely. You won’t have to use different apps for different tasks. You’ll simply tell your device, in everyday language, what you want to do. And depending on how much information you choose to share with it, the software will be able to respond personally because it will have a rich understanding of your life. In the near future, anyone who’s online will be able to have a personal assistant powered by artificial intelligence that’s far beyond today’s technology.

This type of software—something that responds to natural language and can accomplish many different tasks based on its knowledge of the user—is called an agent. I’ve been thinking about agents for nearly 30 years and wrote about them in my 1995 book The Road Ahead, but they’ve only recently become practical because of advances in AI.

Agents are not only going to change how everyone interacts with computers. They’re also going to upend the software industry, bringing about the biggest revolution in computing since we went from typing commands to tapping on icons. Gatesnotes:  AI is about to completely change how you use computers

• The future of agents: AI agents are software that can respond to natural language and accomplish many different tasks based on their knowledge of the user. They will be able to help with all aspects of the user’s life, work, and interests.
• The benefits of agents: AI agents will be more personalized, intelligent, and convenient than current apps. They will be able to have nuanced conversations with the user and use the information they have access to to do things for the user or ask for decisions.
• The challenges of agents: AI agents will require advances in AI, especially in natural language understanding and generation, knowledge representation and reasoning, and human-computer interaction. They will also raise ethical and social issues, such as privacy, security, trust, and responsibility.
• The impact of agents: AI agents will revolutionize the software industry and change how everyone interacts with computers. They will create new opportunities and challenges for developers, users, and society.

Here are some highlights from the article that you can read in full here. 

A shock wave in the tech industry

To create a new app or service, you won’t need to know how to write code or do graphic design. You’ll just tell your agent what you want. It will be able to write the code, design the look and feel of the app, create a logo, and publish the app to an online store. OpenAI’s launch of GPTs this week offers a glimpse into the future where non-developers can easily create and share their own assistants.

Education

For instance, not all families can afford a personal tutor to enhance their child’s learning. However, if AI can emulate the effectiveness of a tutor, it could make this additional instruction accessible to anyone who needs it. Suppose a tutoring AI knows that a child is interested in Minecraft and Taylor Swift. In that case, it could use Minecraft to teach them about calculating shapes’ volume and area, and Taylor Swift’s lyrics to teach them about storytelling and rhyme schemes. This learning experience would be much more engaging—with graphics and sound, for example—and more personalized than today’s text-based tutors.

Privacy and ethical issues of AI agents

• The text discusses some of the challenges and questions that arise from using AI agents that have access to personal and sensitive data.
• Some of the issues include:
  • Data ownership: Who has the right to use, modify, or share the data that is generated by or fed into the AI agents? How can the original creators or sources of the data be acknowledged or compensated?
  • Data privacy: How can the data that is shared with the AI agents be protected from unauthorized or harmful use? How can the users control what data they want to share and with whom?
  • Data ethics: How can the AI agents respect the values and rights of the users and other stakeholders? How can the AI agents avoid or minimize bias, discrimination, or harm in their outputs or actions?