Bill Gates believes that Agent will be the biggest track for AI

Original source: AI New Intelligence

Author: Bill Gates

Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI

Paul Allen and I co-founded Microsoft today, and my love for software continues to this day.

However, despite the fact that software has come a long way over the past few decades, it is still quite "clunky" in many ways.

To perform any task on your PC, you need to specify which application you want to use. While you can use Microsoft Word or Google Docs to write a business proposal, these tools can't help you send emails, share selfies, analyze data, arrange meetups, or buy movie tickets. Even the best websites have only a partial understanding of your work, personal life, interests, and relationships, and are limited in their ability to use that information to serve you. Currently, this kind of work can usually only be done by humans, such as your close friends or personal assistants.

But in the next five years, that will change completely. You no longer need to switch between different applications for different tasks. You just have to tell your device what you want to do in the usual language. The software will be able to respond personally, based on the amount of information you are willing to share, because it has a deep understanding of your life.

In the near future, anyone who goes online will be able to have a personal assistant powered by advanced artificial intelligence.

This type of software, which understands natural language and accomplishes a variety of tasks based on what it knows about the user, is called an "agent". I've been thinking about Agents for almost 30 years, and I mentioned them in my 1995 book, The Road to the Future, but it's only recently that they've really become practical because of advances in artificial intelligence.

Agents will not only change the way people interact with computers, but they will also disrupt the software industry, triggering the biggest revolution in computing since we went from typing commands to clicking icons.

1 Personal assistant for everyone

Some critics have pointed out that software companies have offered similar services before, but users have not fully embraced them. (People still joke about Clippy, the digital assistant we added to Microsoft Office and then gave it away.) So, why do people use Agents?

The answer is that the Agent will be greatly improved. You'll be able to have more nuanced conversations with them. They will become more personal and not limited to relatively simple tasks such as letter writing. The difference between Clipsy and Agent is as big as the difference between a spin phone and a smartphone.

The Agent will be able to assist you with all activities if you wish. Once granted, the Agent can track your online interactions and physical location to gain insight into the people, places, and activities you're involved in. It will stay on top of your personal and work relationships, hobbies, preferences, and schedule. You can choose when and where it steps in to assist you in making decisions or helping with a task.

To understand the dramatic changes that Agents will bring, we can contrast them with today's AI tools. Most of these tools are bots, confined to a single application, and usually only step in when you specifically make a request. Because they can't remember your habits every time

habitual, and therefore unable to learn and adapt to your preferences.

"Clippy is a bot, not an agent. ”**

Agents are even more intelligent. They are able to make proactive suggestions, not just respond when you ask for them. They are able to accomplish tasks across apps and improve over time because they remember your activity and recognize intentions and patterns in your behavior. Based on this information, they offer what they think you need, although the final decision is always in your hands.

Imagine you want to plan a trip. A travel bot may only be able to help you find hotels that fit your budget. The agent, on the other hand, knows what season you'll be traveling in and can suggest destinations based on what it knows about whether you're always trying new destinations or preferring to visit the same place repeatedly. When asked, it will also recommend activities based on your interests and adventurous tendencies and book you your favorite restaurants. If you want this kind of deeply personalized planning today, you'll need to pay for a travel agent and take the time to tell them what you need.

The most exciting impact of AIAgent is that they will make services that are too expensive for most people today commonplace. They will have a huge impact in four areas: healthcare, education, productivity, and entertainment and shopping.

2 Healthcare

In today's healthcare sector, AI is primarily used to assist with administrative tasks. For example, systems such as Abridge, Nuance DAX, and Nabla Copilot can record audio during a doctor's diagnosis and organize it into notes for the doctor's review.

The real change will come when agents are able to assist patients with initial triage, provide advice on how to manage health issues, and determine whether medical attention is needed. These agents will also help healthcare workers make more informed decisions and work more efficiently. (For example, an app like Glass Health is able to analyze a summary of a patient's condition and make possible diagnostic recommendations for doctors.) Help for patients and health workers is especially important for people in poor countries, where many people simply don't have access to doctors.

The promotion of these clinical agents will be slower than other types, because accuracy is a matter of life and death. One needs to be convinced that while these health agents are imperfect and can be fallible, they are generally beneficial. Of course, humans make mistakes, and the absence of health care is also a problem.

"Half of the veterans in the U.S. who need mental health care are not treated accordingly. ”

Mental health care is another area of service that will be accessible to almost everyone. Psychotherapy once a week seems like a luxury these days. But in reality, there are many unmet needs that many people in need of psychotherapy do not have access to. For example, research by the RAND Corporation found that half of the veterans in the U.S. who need mental health care are not treated.

AIAgent, professionally trained in mental health, will make psychotherapy more affordable and accessible. Wysa and Youper are two early examples of chatbots in this space. However, the role of the agent will be more in-depth. If you are willing to share sufficient information with a mental health agent, it will be able to understand your life history and relationships. It will be available when you need it and will never feel impatient. With your permission, it can even monitor your physiological responses during therapy through the smartwatch – like your heart racing when you talk about problems with your boss – and advise you on when you should seek help from a human psychotherapist.

3 Education

For decades, I've been looking forward to how software can simplify teachers' jobs and help students learn. It doesn't replace teachers, but it complements their work – tailoring instruction to students and freeing teachers from tedious paperwork and other tasks to have more time to focus on the most important parts of their work. These changes are finally starting to materialize in a significant way.

The current advanced technology is Khanmigo, a text-based robot developed by Khan Academy. It provides tutoring for students in math, science, and humanities – for example, explaining quadratic equations and creating math problems for practice

Practice. It also helps teachers with things like lesson planning. I have been a longtime supporter of Sal Khan's work and recently invited him to talk about education and AI on my podcast.

But text-based bots are only the first step – agents will open up more learning opportunities.

For example, few families can afford to provide one-on-one tutoring to students to supplement classroom learning. If Agents can mimic the characteristics of effective tutoring, they will provide this supplemental instruction to all who need it. If a tutoring agent knows that a child loves Minecraft and Taylor Swift, it will use Minecraft to teach volume and area calculations, as well as storytelling and rhyming skills through Taylor's lyrics. Compared to today's text-based tutoring, the experience will be richer – for example, combining graphics and sound – and more personalized.

4 Productivity

In this field, the competition is already fierce. Microsoft is integrating its Copilot features into services such as Word, Excel, Outlook, and more. Google is doing something similar with Assistant, Bard, and its productivity tools. These bots do tasks like turning text documents into slides, answering spreadsheet-related questions in natural language, and summarizing email discussions while reflecting everyone's perspective.

The agent's capabilities will be even more powerful. Having an Agent is like having someone who specializes in assisting you with various tasks and completing them independently when you need them. For example, if you have a business idea, the Agent can help you write a business plan, make a presentation, and even generate an image of what your product might look like. The company can provide an agent service for employees, so that the agent can directly participate in each meeting and answer questions.

"If your friend has just had surgery, your agent will offer to deliver the flowers and can complete the flower ordering service for you. ”

Whether you're working in an office or not, your agent can help you just like a personal assistant today. If your friend has recently undergone surgery, your agent will offer to send flowers and help you complete the order. If you want to reunite with your college roommates, it will work with their agents to schedule a meeting time and remind you before you arrive that their older child has just started attending the local university.

5 Entertainment & Shopping

Today, AI can help you pick new TVs and recommend movies, books, shows, and podcasts. Similarly, a company I invested in recently launched Pix, which allows you to ask questions (e.g., "Which Robert Redford movies would I like?"). Where can I watch it? Then make a recommendation based on your past preferences. Spotify's AI-powered DJ not only plays songs based on your preferences, but also communicates with you and can even call you by name.

Agents don't just make recommendations, they help you implement them. If you want to buy a camera, you can ask the agent to read all the reviews for you, summarize them, give recommendations, and place an order for you once you've made a decision. If you tell the agent that you want to watch Star Wars, it will know if you have a subscription to the corresponding streaming service, and if not, it will offer to sign you up. If you're not sure what you want to watch, it will provide customized suggestions and then help you play the movie or show of your choice.

You also get access to news and entertainment content tailored to your interests. An example of this trend is CurioAI, which can create custom podcasts based on any topic you propose.

6 The Great Change in the Technology Industry

In short, the Agent will be able to help with almost all activities and all areas of life. This will have far-reaching implications for the software industry and society as a whole.

In the computing industry, we're talking about the underlying technologies on which platforms – applications and services are built. Android, iOS, and Windows are all examples of platforms. Agent will be the next platform.

To create a new application or service, you just need to tell your Agent your needs. ”

To create a new app or service, you don't need programming or graphic design skills. You just need to tell your Agent what you need. It will be able to write code, design the look and feel of the app, create a logo, and publish the app to the online store. OpenAI's GPTs, launched this week, showcased a preview of the future where non-developers can easily create and share their own assistants.

Agents will affect how we use the software and how we write it. They will replace search sites because they will be more efficient at finding and summarizing information for you. They will replace many e-commerce sites because they will find you the best prices and will not be limited to a handful of suppliers. They will replace word processing software, spreadsheets, and other productivity applications. What is today separate businesses – search ads, social networks with ads, shopping, productivity software – will merge into one business.

I don't think there will be any single company dominating the agent business – there will be many different AI engines to choose from. Today, agents are embedded in other software, such as word processors and spreadsheets, but eventually they will operate independently. While some Agents will be free to use (and supported by ads), I think you will have to pay for most Agents, which means that companies will have an incentive to have Agents represent your interests, not those of advertisers. The number of companies that have started working on AI this year suggests that there will be unusually strong competition, which will make the Agent very affordable.

But before the advanced agents I've described become a reality, we need to face a lot of questions about the technology and how to use it. I've already written about AI-induced issues before, so I'm going to focus specifically on Agents here.

7 Technical Challenges

No one has yet figured out what the agent's data structure should look like. To create a personal agent, we needed a new type of database that could accurately capture the nuances of your interests and relationships and quickly extract that information while protecting privacy. We're starting to see some new ways to store information, such as vector databases, which may be better suited for storing data generated by machine learning models.

There is also an unsolved mystery about how many Agents people will interact with. Will your personal agent be separate from your psychotherapy agent and math tutoring agent? If so, then under what circumstances do you want them to cooperate with each other, and when should they remain independent?

"If your agent needs to contact you, it will speak to you through a headset or display a message on your phone. ”

How will you interact with your Agent? Currently, the company is exploring a variety of options including apps, glasses, pendants, pins, and even holograms. These are all possible ways, but I think the first big breakthrough in human interaction with Agents will be headsets. If your agent needs to contact you, it will speak to you through a headset or display a message on your phone. ("Your flight was delayed.") Do you want to wait, or do you need me to help you rebook? It can also monitor the sounds coming into your ears if you want and elevate the listening experience by cancelling out background noise, enhancing hard-to-hear voices, or making it easier for people with heavy accents to speak.

There are other challenges. There is currently no standard protocol that allows agents to communicate with each other. The cost of the Agent needs to be reduced to make it affordable for everyone. The process of activating the agent to get the correct answer needs to be simpler. We need to prevent hallucinations in areas such as health, where accuracy is critical, while ensuring that Agents don't harm people because of bias. We don't want Agents to do things they shouldn't. (Although I'm less concerned about malicious agents than I am about human criminals using them for malicious activities.) ）

8 Privacy and Other Material Issues

With the convergence of these technologies, online privacy and security concerns will be more pressing than ever. You'll want to be able to decide what information the agent has access to, so you can be confident that your data is only being shared with the people and companies you choose.

But who owns the data you share with the agent, and how do you make sure it's used appropriately? No one wants to start receiving ads because they tell psychotherapy agents about what they tell them. Can law enforcement use your agent as evidence against you? When will your agent refuse to do something that could be harmful to you or others? Who determines the values embedded in the agent?

There is also the question of how much information the agent should share. Let's say you want to meet a friend: If your Agent communicates with theirs, you don't want it to say, "Oh, she's going to meet other friends on Tuesday and doesn't plan to let you attend." "If your agent writes work emails for you.

It needs to know that your personal information or proprietary data from your previous job should not be used.

Many of these issues are already at the forefront of the tech industry and lawmakers. I recently attended an AI forum organized by Senator Chuck Schumer, which was also attended by other technology leaders and many U.S. senators. We shared our thoughts on these and other issues and discussed the need for strong legislation by legislators.

But other issues will not be decided by companies and governments. For example, Agents may change the way we interact with friends and family. Today, you can show that you care about them by remembering details from their lives – like their birthdays. But does it still make sense to them when they know that it's likely to be your agent who reminds you about it and is responsible for delivering the flowers?

In the distant future, Agents may even force humanity to face profound questions about purpose. Imagine that the Agent becomes so good that everyone can enjoy a high quality of life with little to no work. How will people use their time in such a future? Would anyone still want to be educated when the Agent had all the answers? Can a safe and prosperous society be maintained when most people have a lot of free time?

But we're still far from that.

At the same time, the Agent is quietly arriving.

In the coming years, they will revolutionize the way we live, both online and offline.