What if you could hand over a list of tasks to an AI personal assistant and have it take care of all the details?
You know, you could just say: Order the weekly groceries (only forget the bananas this week). And book me a flight for, uh, next Thursday to Seattle; morning preferably. Have them deliver my drycleaning sometime this afternoon. Oh, and check my schedule for a good time to meet with Dave, next week. And you’d know that all the particulars would be paid for, set up and handled to your liking while you did important things like, say, taking a stroll in the park.
Would that kind of power make you a happy camper? Or does a future of that sort kinda give you the heebie-jeebies?
In either case, those sorts of artificial intelligence assistant programs are already being rolled out for business andpersonal use. And they’re going to be a part of our everyday life soon. Those assistants are called AI agents.
What Exactly Is an AI Agent?
Well, you know about chatbots like ChatGPT, right? Programs like that are what we usually think of when we hear the term AI. ChatGPT is an LLM (Large Language Model) that uses machine learning to absorb information from the internet and then respond to our prompts.
An AI agent, then, is essentially a “system” of programs that blends an LLM with the growing frontier of AI-powered tools. After you give it your to-do list, the system comes up with a plan, autonomously executing that plan based on your preferences and tendencies.
How does it know your preferences and tendencies? It learns them by scanning through your past online ordering history, your past airline choices and seating preferences, your past purchases with your credit card and your past texts and communications.
In other words, your banking records, credit card info and acres of phone messages—all things your agent will need to connect with—will give it all the information it needs to serve you well. Sure, a human assistant would take quite a while to wade through all that data, but for an AI agent, it’s a breeze.
When Can I Start Using AI Agents?
If you’re doubting that these things will soon be as normal as the phone in your pocket, just remember how quickly said phone took over literally everything in your life and made its home in your pocket. (I mean, when I was a kid, only futuristic space travelers had such high-tech wizardry.)
In fact, the company behind ChatGPT, OpenAI, has already introduced an AI agent called “Operator.” OpenAI says Operator is capable of many of the things I mentioned, as well as filling out forms and applications on your behalf and doing minute tasks such as searching and ordering ingredients for your favorite recipes.
Other businesses have been experimenting with building and utilizing AI agents for a while now, too. I read an article written by a marketer who asked an AI agent to search the internet for online influencers who might have an interest in showcasing a certain product. The AI agent came up with a detailed list of possible influencers, their preferred means of contact and a personalized email designed to entice and invite each influencer to give the product a try. And all that research only took an hour or so.
Of course, while we wait for our personal AI agent to appear, we can also take the time now to think about any drawbacks connected to this upcoming source of wonder. For instance, there’s the privacy side of things—something we already struggle with as a society. How do you feel about an AI agent digging its digital fingers into every part of your life? Will that be something you can really control? For that matter, if these very capable systems can be used to help you, could they also be manipulated to hurt you?
As these tools grow more sophisticated and further infiltrate our daily routines, some experts fear that users may also risk becoming overly dependent on AI-powered help. Cellphones and social media have been criticized for making teens more isolated and less able to navigate an in-person world. How might a do-everything AI agent affect their lives?
Those are all questions well worth considering, both personally and with your family in mind. No matter where you land or how great you think the onrush of tomorrow’s tech will be, though, it’s important to remember that technology of every stripe is a tool. We should use, guide and control it … not the other way around.
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