Ceding control to software
Of course, there's the question of whether we really want to cede control over our affairs to an artificially-intelligent piece of software, which might even have its own legal powers. "Some autonomy is good. Absolute autonomy is scary," Cliff says. "Our legal system isn't prepared yet for high autonomy systems. For example, if I give it my credit card, would I be violating my credit card agreement?"
On a more practical level, it isn't clear users would really find agents useful. After all, it was clear-headed, original thinking about AI that resulted in the much-reviled personal assistants in Microsoft Office. Another potentially irritating application, under development by Autonomy for Tesco, would notice when you visit a competitor's food-shopping site and then suggest Tesco's lower prices.
"I see the Internet as a pull medium," says Brown. "People know roughly what they want, and they seek it out. The idea that I want things to be delivered to me automatically might be interesting, but it isn't a killer app."
A compromise solution is to build a more human interface for tasks that have already proven popular, such as Web searching. Sites such as Ask Jeeves are using AI in the hope of making the Internet a more intuitive place, where you get things done the same way you do in the real world.
Ask Jeeves believes human-style interfaces will eventually help people do everything from shopping to setting up their new answering machine, and will be indistinguishable from talking to a real person. Sports giant Nike is already using an Ask Jeeves interface to help sell shoes on its Web site, asking the user what they want and then finding the best matches. "It talks you through the refinement process," says Donald Clark, product development manager at Ask Jeeves UK. "It's like putting your best salesperson on the Web."
Ask Jeeves' humanistic objectives are shared by MIT's Project Oxygen, a new research project aimed at making computing more pervasive and friendly. The project, launched last year, is supported by Acer Group, Delta Electronics, HP, NTT, Nokia Research Centre and Philips Research.
