Interface agentry will become decentralized in the same way as information and organizations. Like an army commander sending a scout ahead or a sheriff sending out a posse, you will dispatch agents to collect information on your behalf. Agents will dispatch agents. The process multiplies.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “Being Digital,” Nicholas Negroponte writes:”Interface agentry will become decentralized in the same way as information and organizations. Like an army commander sending a scout ahead or a sheriff sending out a posse, you will dispatch agents to collect information on your behalf. Agents will dispatch agents. The process multiplies. But remember how it started: it started at the interface where you delegated your desires, versus diving into the World Wide Web … It is also important to see the interface agent approach as very different from the current rage about the Internet and browsing it with Mosaic. The Internet hackers can surf that medium, explore enormous bodies of knowledge, and indulge in all kinds of new socialization. This strikingly wide-spread phenomenon is not going to abate or go away, but it is only one kind of behavior, one more like direct manipulation than delegation. Our interfaces will vary. Yours will be different from mine, based on our respective information predilections, entertainment habits, and social behavior – all drawn from the very large palette of digital life.”
Biography:Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and a popular speaker and writer about technologies of the future, wrote one of the 1990s’ best-selling books about the new future of communications, “Being Digital.” (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: February 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Intelligent Agents/AI
Name of publication: Being Digital (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 12: Less Is More
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 158, 159
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne