I still love software as much today as I did when Paul Allen and I started Microsoft. But—even though it has improved a lot in the decades since then—in many ways, software is still pretty dumb.
今天，我仍如当初和保罗·艾伦创立微软时一样热爱软件。尽管从那以后的几十年里软件已经有了很大的改进，但在许多方面，它们仍然相当愚蠢。
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.
无论在电脑上执行什么任务，你必须告诉你的设备要启用哪个应用程序。Microsoft Word和Google Docs可以帮你起草商业计划书，但它们不能帮你发送电子邮件、分享自拍、分析数据、安排聚会或购买电影票。即使是最好的网站也不能完全了解你的工作、个人生活、兴趣和人际关系，而且使用这些信息为你做事的能力也很有限。这是在如今只有另一个人帮忙才能做到的事情，比如亲密的朋友或私人助理。
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.
在接下来的五年里，这种情况将完全改变。你不必为不同的任务使用不同的应用程序。你只需用简单通俗的语言告诉你的设备你想做什么。根据你选择与软件分享多少信息，基于对你的生活有丰富的了解，软件将能够作出个性化的回应。在不久的将来，任何上网的人都可以拥有一个由人工智能驱动的个人助理，这远远超出了当今的技术水平。
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.
这种类型的软件——能够对自然语言作出反应，并且能够基于对用户的了解完成许多不同的任务——被称为智能体（agent）。近30年来，我一直在思考智能体，并在1995年出版的《未来之路》一书中提到了它们，但直到最近，由于人工智能的进步，它们才变得实用起来。
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.
智能体不仅会改变每个人与电脑互动的方式。它们还将颠覆软件行业，引领自我们从输入命令到点击图标以来最大的计算机革命。
每个人的私人助理
A personal assistant for everyone
Some critics have pointed out that software companies have offered this kind of thing before, and users didn’t exactly embrace them. (People still joke about Clippy, the digital assistant that we included in Microsoft Office and later dropped.) Why will people use agents?
一些评论家指出，软件公司以前也提供过这种东西，用户并不完全接受它们。（人们还是会拿Clippy开玩笑，它是我们曾在Microsoft Office中提供的数字助理，后来被弃置一边。）为什么人们要使用智能体？
The answer is that they’ll be dramatically better. You’ll be able to have nuanced conversations with them. They will be much more personalized, and they won’t be limited to relatively simple tasks like writing a letter. Clippy has as much in common with agents as a rotary phone has with a mobile device.
答案是它们会变得更好。你将能够与它们进行细致入微的交谈。它们将更加个性化，不局限于写一封信这样相对简单的任务。Clippy与智能体的共同点就像旋转号盘电话与移动设备的共同点一样。
An agent will be able to help you with all your activities if you want it to. With permission to follow your online interactions and real-world locations, it will develop a powerful understanding of the people, places, and activities you engage in. It will get your personal and work relationships, hobbies, preferences, and schedule. You’ll choose how and when it steps in to help with something or ask you to make a decision.
如果你愿意，智能体将能够帮助你做任何事。如果允许跟踪你的在线互动情况和真实世界所处的位置，它将对你涉及的人、地点和活动形成深入的了解。它会了解你的私人和工作关系、爱好、偏好和日程安排。你可以选择它何时以何种方式介入帮助你做某事或让你做决定。
“Clippy was a bot， not an agent.”
“Clippy只是bot，不是智能体。”
To see the dramatic change that agents will bring, let’s compare them to the AI tools available today. Most of these are bots. They’re limited to one app and generally only step in when you write a particular word or ask for help. Because they don’t remember how you use them from one time to the next, they don’t get better or learn any of your preferences. Clippy was a bot, not an agent.
为了了解智能体将带来的巨大变化，让我们将它们与当今可用的人工智能工具进行比较。其中大部分都是bot（译者注：bot是“robot”的简称，即“机器人”或自动化程序）。它们仅限于一个应用程序，通常只有当你输入一个特定的单词或寻求帮助时才会介入。它们不记得你每次是如何使用它们的，不会变得更好，也不会学习你的任何偏好。Clippy只是bot，不是智能体。
Agents are smarter. They’re proactive—capable of making suggestions before you ask for them. They accomplish tasks across applications. They improve over time because they remember your activities and recognize intent and patterns in your behavior. Based on this information, they offer to provide what they think you need, although you will always make the final decisions.
智能体更聪明。他们能够在你征求他们的意见之前就主动提出建议。它们通过跨应用程序联动来完成任务。它们会随着时间的推移而升级，因为它们会记住你的活动，识别你行为的意图和模式。基于这些信息，它们会提供它们认为你需要的东西，尽管最终决定总是由你来做。
Imagine that you want to plan a trip. A travel bot will identify hotels that fit your budget. An agent will know what time of year you’ll be traveling and, based on its knowledge about whether you always try a new destination or like to return to the same place repeatedly, it will be able to suggest locations. When asked, it will recommend things to do based on your interests and propensity for adventure, and it will book reservations at the types of restaurants you would enjoy. If you want this kind of deeply personalized planning today, you need to pay a travel agent and spend time telling them what you want.
假设你想计划一次旅行。旅游bot会帮你找到适合你预算的酒店。而智能体将知道你将在一年中的什么时候旅行，根据它对你是否总是尝试新的目的地或喜欢故地重游的了解，向你建议旅游目的地。当被询问时，智能体会根据你的兴趣和冒险倾向为你推荐可以做的事情，还会预订你喜欢的餐厅。当下如果你想要这种深度个性化的规划，你需要付费给旅行社，并花时间告诉他们你的需求。
The most exciting impact of AI agents is the way they will democratize services that today are too expensive for most people. They’ll have an especially big influence in four areas: health care, education, productivity, and entertainment and shopping.
人工智能体能带来最令人兴奋的影响，是它们将使今天对大多数人来说过于昂贵的服务平民化。它们将在四个领域产生极大的影响：医疗保健、教育、生产力和购物娱乐。
医疗保健
Health care
Today, AI’s main role in healthcare is to help with administrative tasks. Abridge, Nuance DAX, and Nabla Copilot, for example, can capture audio during an appointment and then write up notes for the doctor to review.
如今，人工智能在医疗保健领域的主要作用是帮助完成行政管理工作。例如，Abridge、Nuance DAX和Nabla Copilot可以捕获就诊过程中的音频，然后写下笔记供医生审阅。
The real shift will come when agents can help patients do basic triage, get advice about how to deal with health problems, and decide whether they need to seek treatment. These agents will also help healthcare workers make decisions and be more productive. (Already, apps like Glass Health can analyze a patient summary and suggest diagnoses for the doctor to consider.) Helping patients and healthcare workers will be especially beneficial for people in poor countries, where many never get to see a doctor at all.
当智能体可以帮助病人进行基本的分诊，就如何处理健康问题获得建议，并决定他们是否需要寻求治疗时，真正的转变将会到来。这些智能体还将帮助医护人员作出决定，提高工作效率。（目前，Glass Health等应用程序已经可以分析病人摘要，并提出诊断建议供医生参考。）帮助病人和医护人员对贫穷国家的人们尤其有益，因为那里的许多人根本没有机会看医生。
These clinician-agents will be slower than others to roll out because getting things right is a matter of life and death. People will need to see evidence that health agents are beneficial overall, even though they won’t be perfect and will make mistakes. Of course, humans make mistakes too, and having no access to medical care is also a problem.
这些临床医生智能体的推广速度会比其他智能体慢一些，因为智能与否关系到生死存亡。人们需要看到证据来证明医疗智能体总体上是有益的，尽管它们并不完美，也会犯错。当然，人类也会犯错，无法获得医疗服务就是造成的问题之一。
“Half of all U.S. military veterans who need mental health care don’t get it.”
“所有需要心理健康护理的美国退伍军人中，有一半没有得到治疗。”
Mental health care is another example of a service that agents will make available to virtually everyone. Today， weekly therapy sessions seem like a luxury. But there is a lot of unmet need， and many people who could benefit from therapy don’t have access to it. For example， RAND found that half of all U.S. military veterans who need mental health care don’t get it.
精神卫生保健是另一个例子，智能体将向几乎所有人提供服务。如今，每周一次的心理治疗似乎是一种奢侈。但仍有许多需求未得到满足，许多本可以从治疗中获益的人却没有机会得到治疗。例如，兰德公司发现，所有需要心理健康护理的美国退伍军人中，有一半没有得到治疗。
AI agents that are well trained in mental health will make therapy much more affordable and easier to get. Wysa and Youper are two of the early chatbots here. But agents will go much deeper. If you choose to share enough information with a mental health agent， it will understand your life history and your relationships. It’ll be available when you need it， and it will never get impatient. It could even， with your permission， monitor your physical responses to therapy through your smart watch—like if your heart starts to race when you’re talking about a problem with your boss—and suggest when you should see a human therapist.
在心理健康方面训练有素的人工智能体将使治疗更加经济实惠，也更易获得。其中就包含Wysa和Youper，两个早期聊天机器人。但是，智能体带来的影响将更加深远。如果你选择与心理健康智能体分享足够多的信息，它就会了解你的生活经历和人际关系。它会在你需要的时候出现，而且永远保持耐心。在你允许的情况下，它还可以通过你的智能手表监测你对治疗的身体反应——比如当你和老板谈论问题时你的心脏是否开始加速跳动——并建议你什么时候应该去看人类治疗师。
教育
Education
For decades， I’ve been excited about all the ways that software would make teachers’ jobs easier and help students learn. It won’t replace teachers， but it will supplement their work—personalizing the work for students and liberating teachers from paperwork and other tasks so they can spend more time on the most important parts of the job. These changes are finally starting to happen in a dramatic way.
几十年来，我一直对软件能让教师工作更轻松、帮助学生学习的方方面面感到振奋。软件不会取代教师，但它会补充他们的工作——为学生提供个性化的服务，将教师从文书工作和其他任务中解放出来，让他们有更多的时间从事最重要的工作。这些变化终于开始以戏剧性的方式发生了。
The current state of the art is Khanmigo， a text-based bot created by Khan Academy. It can tutor students in math， science， and the humanities—for example， it can explain the quadratic formula and create math problems to practice on. It can also help teachers do things like write lesson plans. I’ve been a fan and supporter of Sal Khan’s work for a long time and recently had him on my podcast to talk about education and AI.
目前，其中最先进的是可汗学院开发的文本bot Khanmigo。它可以辅导学生学习数学、科学和人文学科——例如，它可以解释二次方程式，并创建数学问题进行练习。它还可以帮助教师编写教案等。我一直以来都是萨尔·可汗的粉丝和支持者，最近他还参加了我的播客节目，谈论教育和人工智能。
But text-based bots are just the first wave—agents will open up many more learning opportunities.
但文本bot只是第一阶段——智能体将开启更多的学习机会。
For example， few families can pay for a tutor who works one-on-one with a student to supplement their classroom work. If agents can capture what makes a tutor effective， they’ll unlock this supplemental instruction for everyone who wants it. If a tutoring agent knows that a kid likes Minecraft and Taylor Swift， it will use Minecraft to teach them about calculating the volume and area of shapes， and Taylor’s lyrics to teach them about storytelling and rhyme schemes. The experience will be far richer—with graphics and sound， for example—and more personalized than today’s text-based tutors.
例如，很少有家庭可以花钱请家教一对一地辅导学生，以补充他们的课堂学习。如果智能体能够捕捉到导师的有效之处，它们就能为每一个有需要的人提供这种补充教学。如果一个辅导智能体知道一个孩子喜欢《我的世界》和泰勒·斯威夫特，它就会用《我的世界》教他们计算形状的体积和面积，用泰勒的歌词教他们讲故事和押韵。这种体验将更加丰富——例如，有图形和声音——而且比现在的文字辅导更加个性化。
生产力
Productivity
There’s already a lot of competition in this field. Microsoft is making its Copilot part of Word， Excel， Outlook， and other services. Google is doing similar things with Assistant with Bard and its productivity tools. These copilots can do a lot—such as turn a written document into a slide deck， answer questions about a spreadsheet using natural language， and summarize email threads while representing each person’s point of view.
这个领域的竞争已经很激烈了。微软正在把它的Copilot作为Word、Excel、Outlook和其他服务的一部分。谷歌也在用Assistant with Bard和其生产力工具做类似的事情。这些Copilot可以做很多事情，比如把书面文件变成幻灯片，用自然语言回答电子表格的问题，在阐述每个人的观点的同时总结电子邮件的主题。
Agents will do even more. Having one will be like having a person dedicated to helping you with various tasks and doing them independently if you want. If you have an idea for a business， an agent will help you write up a business plan， create a presentation for it， and even generate images of what your product might look like. Companies will be able to make agents available for their employees to consult directly and be part of every meeting so they can answer questions.
智能体则会的更多。拥有一个智能体就像有一个人专门帮助你完成各种任务，如果你愿意，也可以独立完成。如果你有一个商业想法，智能体将帮助你写一份商业计划，创建一个演示文稿，甚至生成产品大概长什么样的图像。公司将能够让员工直接咨询智能体，并参与每次会议，以便回答问题。
“If your friend just had surgery， your agent will offer to send flowers and be able to order them for you.”
“如果你的朋友刚做了手术，智能体会提议送花并帮你订购。”
Whether you work in an office or not， your agent will be able to help you in the same way that personal assistants support executives today. If your friend just had surgery， your agent will offer to send flowers and be able to order them for you. If you tell it you’d like to catch up with your old college roommate， it will work with their agent to find a time to get together， and just before you arrive， it will remind you that their oldest child just started college at the local university.
无论你是否在办公室工作，你的智能体都能像如今的私人助理支持高管一样帮助你。如果你的朋友刚做了手术，智能体会提议送花并帮你订购。如果你告诉它你想和你以前的大学室友见面，它会和他们的智能体一起协商找时间见面，就在你到达之前，它会提醒你他们最大的孩子刚刚在本地大学就读。
娱乐与购物
Entertainment and shopping
Already， AI can help you pick out a new TV and recommend movies， books， shows， and podcasts. Likewise， a company I’ve invested in， recently launched Pix， which lets you ask questions (“Which Robert Redford movies would I like and where can I watch them?”) and then makes recommendations based on what you’ve liked in the past. Spotify has an AI-powered DJ that not only plays songs based on your preferences but talks to you and can even call you by name.
人工智能已经可以帮助你挑选新电视，推荐电影、书籍、节目和播客。我投资过的Likewise公司最近推出了Pix，可以让你提出问题（“我喜欢罗伯特·雷德福的哪部电影，我可以在哪里看？”），然后根据你过去喜欢的电影给出建议。Spotify最近推出了一款人工智能DJ，它不仅可以根据你的喜好播放歌曲，还可以与你交谈，甚至直呼你的名字。
Agents won’t simply make recommendations; they’ll help you act on them. If you want to buy a camera， you’ll have your agent read all the reviews for you， summarize them， make a recommendation， and place an order for it once you’ve made a decision. If you tell your agent that you want to watch Star Wars， it will know whether you’re subscribed to the right streaming service， and if you aren’t， it will offer to sign you up. And if you don’t know what you’re in the mood for， it will make customized suggestions and then figure out how to play the movie or show you choose.
智能体不仅会简单地提出建议，他们还会帮助你作出决定。如果你想买一台相机，你可以让你的智能体为你阅读所有的评价，总结它们，作出建议，并在你作出决定后下单。如果你告诉它你想看《星球大战》，它能知道你是否订阅了正确的流媒体服务，如果你没有，它会主动为你注册。如果你不知道自己想看什么，它会给出定制化建议，然后想办法播放你选择的电影或节目。
You’ll also be able to get news and entertainment that’s been tailored to your interests. CurioAI， which creates a custom podcast on any subject you ask about， is a glimpse of what’s coming.
你还可以获得根据你的兴趣量身定制的新闻和娱乐。CurioAI能够就你提出的任何话题创建定制化播客，它是未来趋势的一个缩影。
科技行业的冲击波
A shock wave in the tech industry
In short， agents will be able to help with virtually any activity and any area of life. The ramifications for the software business and for society will be profound.
简而言之，智能体几乎将在任何活动和生活领域提供帮助。对软件行业和社会产生深远的影响。
In the computing industry， we talk about platforms—the technologies that apps and services are built on. Android， iOS， and Windows are all platforms. Agents will be the next platform.
在计算机行业，我们聊平台——应用程序和服务赖以构建的技术。Android、iOS和Windows都是平台。智能体将成为下一个平台。
“To create a new app or service， you’ll just tell your agent what you want.”
“要创建一个新的应用程序或服务，你只需要告诉你的智能体你想要什么。”
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.
要创建一个新的应用程序或服务，你不需要知道如何编写代码或做图形设计。你只要告诉你的智能体你想要什么。它将能够编写代码，设计应用程序的界面外观，创建徽标，并将应用程序发布到在线商店。OpenAI本周发布的GPTs让我们得以一窥未来，非开发人员也可以轻松创建和分享他们自己的助手。
Agents will affect how we use software as well as how it’s written. They’ll replace search sites， because they’ll be better at finding information and summarizing it for you. They’ll replace many e-commerce sites， because they’ll find the best price for you and won’t be restricted to just a few vendors. They’ll replace word processors， spreadsheets， and other productivity apps. Businesses that are separate today—search advertising， social networking with advertising， shopping， productivity software—will become one business.
智能体将影响我们如何使用软件以及如何编写软件。它们将取代搜索网站，因为它们将更善于查找信息并为你汇总信息。它们将取代电子商务网站，因为它们将为你找到最优惠的价格，而不仅仅局限于少数供应商。它们将取代很多文字处理器、电子表格和其他生产力应用程序。如今分散的业务——搜索广告、带有广告的社交网络、购物、生产力软件——将整合为一项业务。
I don’t think any single company will dominate the agents business–there will be many different AI engines available. Today， agents are embedded in other software like word processors and spreadsheets， but eventually they’ll operate on their own. Although some agents will be free to use (and supported by ads)， I think you’ll pay for most of them， which means companies will have an incentive to make agents work on your behalf and not an advertiser’s. If the number of companies that have started working on AI just this year is any indication， there will be an exceptional amount of competition， which will make agents very inexpensive.
我不认为任何一家公司能垄断智能体业务——会有很多不同的人工智能引擎可用。今天，智能体被嵌入到其他软件中，如文字处理器和电子表格，但最终它们将独立运行。尽管一些智能体可以免费使用（并拉到广告赞助），但我认为你会为其中的大部分付费，这意味着公司将有动机让智能体为你工作，而不是为广告商。如果从今年开始研究人工智能的公司数量来看，将会出现异常激烈的竞争，这将使智能体的价格非常低廉。
But before the sophisticated agents I’m describing become a reality， we need to confront a number of questions about the technology and how we’ll use it. I’ve written before about the issues that AI raises， so I’ll focus specifically on agents here.
但在我所描述的成熟智能体成为现实之前，我们需要面对一些关于这项技术以及我们将如何使用它的问题。我之前写过关于人工智能带来的问题，我将在这里着重提及智能体。
技术挑战
The technical challenges
Nobody has figured out yet what the data structure for an agent will look like. To create personal agents， we need a new type of database that can capture all the nuances of your interests and relationships and quickly recall the information while maintaining your privacy. We are already seeing new ways of storing information， such as vector databases， that may be better for storing data generated by machine learning models.
目前还没有人知道智能体的数据结构是什么样的。为了创建私人智能体，我们需要一种新型的数据库，它可以细腻地捕捉你的兴趣和各种关系，并在保持你的隐私的同时快速回响起这些信息。我们已经见识到了存储信息的新方式，例如向量数据库，它可能更适合存储机器学习模型生成的数据。
Another open question is about how many agents people will interact with. Will your personal agent be separate from your therapist agent and your math tutor? If so， when will you want them to work with each other and when should they stay in their lanes?
另一个悬而未决的问题是，人们将与多少智能体互动。你的私人智能体会与你的心理医生智能体和数学导师智能体分开吗？这样的话，你希望它们什么时候相互配合，什么时候保持独立呢？
“If your agent needs to check in with you， it will speak to you or show up on your phone.”
“如果你的智能体需要与你联系，它会与你说话或出现在你的手机上。”
How will you interact with your agent? Companies are exploring various options including apps， glasses， pendants， pins， and even holograms. All of these are possibilities， but I think the first big breakthrough in human-agent interaction will be earbuds. If your agent needs to check in with you， it will speak to you or show up on your phone. (“Your flight is delayed. Do you want to wait， or can I help rebook it?”) If you want， it will monitor sound coming into your ear and enhance it by blocking out background noise， amplifying speech that’s hard to hear， or making it easier to understand someone who’s speaking with a heavy accent.
你将如何与你的智能体互动呢？各公司正在探索各种各样的选择，包括应用程序、眼镜、吊坠、胸针，甚至全息图。所有这些都存在可能性，但我认为人与物互动的第一个重大突破将是耳塞。如果你的智能体需要与你联系，它会与你通话或显示在你的手机上。（“你的航班延误了。你是想等一下，还是我帮你重新预约?”）如果你愿意，它会监控进入你耳朵的声音，并通过屏蔽背景噪音、放大难以听清的语音、或让你更容易理解口音重的人说话来增强它的效果。
There are other challenges too. There isn’t yet a standard protocol that will allow agents to talk to each other. The cost needs to come down so agents are affordable for everyone. It needs to be easier to prompt the agent in a way that will give you the right answer. We need to prevent hallucinations， especially in areas like health where accuracy is super-important， and make sure that agents don’t harm people as a result of their biases. And we don’t want agents to be able to do things they’re not supposed to. (Although I worry less about rogue agents than about human criminals using agents for malign purposes.)
还有其他挑战。目前还没有一个标准协议允许智能体们互相交谈。成本需要降低，这样每个人都能负担得起它们。我们需要以一种更容易的方式向智能体发出指令，以便它们向你提供正确的回答。我们需要防止出现“人工智能幻觉”（译者注：即人工智能自信地给出了不符合事实的回答），尤其是在精确度要求极高的健康领域，还要确保智能体不会因为它们的偏见而伤害到人们。我们不希望智能体们做它们不该做的事。（不过比起流氓智能体，我更担心的是人类罪犯利用智能体用于邪恶的目的。）
隐私和其他重要问题
Privacy and other big questions
As all of this comes together， the issues of online privacy and security will become even more urgent than they already are. You’ll want to be able to decide what information the agent has access to， so you’re confident that your data is shared with only people and companies you choose.
随着这一切的出现，网络隐私和安全问题将变得比现在更加紧迫。你会希望能够决定智能体访问哪些信息，这样你就可以确信你的数据只与你选择的人和公司共享。
But who owns the data you share with your agent， and how do you ensure that it’s being used appropriately? No one wants to start getting ads related to something they told their therapist agent. 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 someone else? Who picks the values that are built into agents?
但是，谁拥有你与智能体共享的数据，你如何确保这些数据得到适当使用？没有人想收到与他们告诉治疗师智能体的事情相关的广告。执法部门能利用你的智能体提交对你不利的证据吗？你的智能体什么情况下会拒绝做可能对你或其他人有害的事情？谁来选择构建智能体的价值观？
There’s also the question of how much information your agent should share. Suppose you want to see a friend: If your agent talks to theirs， you don’t want it to say， “Oh， she’s seeing other friends on Tuesday and doesn’t want to include you.” And if your agent helps you write emails for work， it will need to know that it shouldn’t use personal information about you or proprietary data from a previous job.
还有一个问题是你的智能体应该分享多少信息。假设你想要见一个朋友：如果你的智能体和他们的智能体交谈，你不希望它说，“哦，她周二要见其他朋友，不想让你参加。”如果你的智能体帮你写工作邮件，它需要知道它不应该使用你的私人信息或以前工作中的专有数据。
Many of these questions are already top-of-mind for the tech industry and legislators. I recently participated in a forum on AI with other technology leaders that was organized by Sen. Chuck Schumer and attended by many U.S. senators. We shared ideas about these and other issues and talked about the need for lawmakers to adopt strong legislation.
其中许多问题已经成为科技行业和立法者最关心的问题。最近，我和其他科技领袖一起参加了由参议员查克·舒默组织的、许多美国参议员参加的人工智能论坛。我们就这些问题和其他问题交换了意见，并讨论了立法者采取强有力立法的必要性。
But other issues won’t be decided by companies and governments. For example， agents could affect how we interact with friends and family. Today， you can show someone that you care about them by remembering details about their life—say， their birthday. But when they know your agent likely reminded you about it and took care of sending flowers， will it be as meaningful for them?
但有一些问题将不会由公司和政府来决定。例如，智能体可能影响我们与朋友和家人的互动方式。今天，你可以通过记住他们生活的细节，比如他们的生日，来表达你对他们的关心。但当他们知道或许是你的智能体提醒你并负责送花时，这对他们来说还有意义吗？
In the distant future， agents may even force humans to face profound questions about purpose. Imagine that agents become so good that everyone can have a high quality of life without working nearly as much. In a future like that， what would people do with their time? Would anyone still want to get an education when an agent has all the answers? Can you have a safe and thriving society when most people have a lot of free time on their hands?
在遥远的未来，智能体甚至可能迫使人类面对一些关于意义的深刻问题。想象一下，智能体变得如此优秀，以至于每个人都可以在不工作的情况下拥有高质量的生活。在这样的未来，人们会如何利用他们的时间？当智能体知道所有问题的答案时，还会有人愿意接受教育吗？当大多数人都有很多空闲时间时，你能拥有一个安全繁荣的社会吗？
But we’re a long way from that point. In the meantime， agents are coming. In the next few years， they will utterly change how we live our lives， online and off.
但我们离那个未来还很远。与此同时，智能体正在赶来。在接下来的几年里，它们将彻底改变我们的生活方式，无论是线上还是线下。
本文原载于比尔·盖茨微信公众号（ID：gatesnotes），作者：Bill Gates