Whether it’s predicting the rise of personal computing or warning about the danger of infectious global pandemics, Bill Gates has a proven knack for foreseeing trends.
In a recent piece he envisions a future where artificial intelligence-driven agents are not only capable of natural language interactions, but also evolve over time, learning from user behavior. These agents will be a far cry from the annoying Windows 98 “Clippy” bot, acting as personal assistants, seamlessly integrating into our daily life, streamlining boring tasks and suggesting actions before the user requests it. Gates details how travel will be in the front line of this disruption:
“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…