Why Artificial Intelligence Is Hyping Intelligent Agents.
AI Agents Don't Need To Sleep.
I'm pretty sure you heard and gotten bored of artificial intelligence, but now you should brace and prepare for something that is going to be as hyped as AI, which is intelligent agents. You thought you would hear the end of it with artificial intelligence, but no, no, no, no no. AI agents are here for the short term hype.
The concept of intelligent agents or AI agents has been there for quite a while. It's not new whatsoever. But recently, it has been hyped up because of multiple companies in the AI world like OpenAI starting their own AI agents initiatives.
Back to the Basics
Intelligent agents or AI agents to make it simple are well… ChatGPT-like tech, but running in the background.
The concept of an AI agent is that it can keep on running and running while you're doing other things. Now you can imagine why the world is hyped up about AI agents because truthfully, our most valuable asset is time.
While using AI models like GPT or Claude spares you some time, you can imagine how much time would be saved if it runs in parallel. If, instead of letting it help you with a task, you would instruct it to do the task while you sleep.
That's why the utopian dream of AI agents has always been interesting. But when you start digging deep into that thought, it's also frightening.
If ChatGPT or artificial intelligence platforms resulted in people getting laid off because companies could simply use GPT or alternatives to do the job that many people used to do, can you imagine what they would do if they have GPT working 24/7?
Suddenly the world got a lot easier for solopreneurs, as in you start your own agency of, let's say, marketing. Instead of hiring a designer, a copywriter, an SEO researcher, a salesperson and any sort of team that you might need, you could theoretically, in the near future, just use AI agents to do all of that work.
In theory, it's valid and, if we are being non emotional here, AI agents will operate with the quality of an average employee but on a 24/7 time frame.
So it's not going to get you a brilliant addition to the team, like a creative team member who needs to think of marketing campaigns. I wouldn't imagine GPT being part of that.
But in terms of execution, AI agents are perfect in this sense.
If editing videos usually consumes hours for a video editor, then with a few tweaks in the near future, AI agents could do that in minutes. So the video editor could theoretically, just give instructions or get shadowed by an AI agent.
It's scary, but we knew and talked about this a million times when AI started to grow.
Risk and Reality
So far when it comes to intelligent agents, I haven't seen a use case that is as strong as I thought I would. Most AI agents right now just do simple things like booking flights and things that are not really as time consuming as you think.
So yes, the world has just created 24/7 AI agents.
We already heard of robots hardware from companies like Figure and the Tesla.
Now we can see the software version of them.
Let's talk risk.
Those AI agents keep on existing in smarter models, it is quite easy to use them for unethical purposes. For instance, I've read that already some people are using Google's new image tool to remove copyrights out of images. The tool hasn't been released for that long. We tend to like to do the wrong thing to just see if it works out or not.
Now, I can't stop thinking of the dangers associated with having an AI agent running 24/7 in a corporation.
What if this corporation was thinking of creating something that is, as you might say, unethical?
What if I instruct this AI agent with a limitless credit card to just keep searching the Internet for copyright material that they want to replicate or steal?
Regulating and moderating this technology is the biggest challenge of our time.
So far, all those big corporations have failed to clarify any way of doing so, which raises a lot of questions in the long term.
For now, you should be sitting on a bench while watching how the AI world unfolds, learning more about technology and waiting for the moments that are bound to happen where we are going to question the necessity, applicability, and the rules surrounding artificial intelligence.