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"In 1970 I found little difficulty staying 30 years ahead of the man in the street, and now I find it difficult to stay 18 months ahead of the man on the street."
- Vernor Vinge
 |
| Interests Profile | ||
| An intelligent agent; a software program with your personal tastes on file. |
The interests profile is the only way to deal with the profusion of goods and services in a worldwide networked economy.
| "...Have you filled out an interests profile?"
"I don't think so." "Oh, do! Then it will tell you what programs are on, what parties you will be welcomed at, who you would wish to know. It's terrible to go on impulse, Charles," she said earnestly. "Let the joymaker help you." He discovered that his own teacup had been replenished and he took a sip. "I don't understand," he said. "You mean I should let the joymaker decide what I'm going to do for fun?" "Of course. There's so much. How could you know what you would like?" |
| From The Age of The Pussyfoot,
by Frederik Pohl. Published by Ballantine in 1966 Additional resources -
|
This is a remarkable prediction from Pohl; the interests profile along with the networked software applications that use it corresponds very closely to what were called autonomous "intelligent agents" in the 1990's.
Knowledge engineering Professor Nikola Kasabov provides the following description of an autonomous intelligent agent's feature set:
This also anticipates the Personal Interest Profile that Arthur C. Clarke mentions in his Fountains of Paradise about a decade later.
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'When unfolded and unrolled... it became a tough, gleaming film.'
