Which, given her growing fame, would seem hard to maintain. In the past two years, Maes and Firefly have done more for software agents than the semi-intelligent bits of software have ever done for us. Now, however, agents are finding their way into the world in large part because of Maes's pioneering work. Her radical approach flew in the face of traditional knowledge-based AI research. This new generation of agents has found a niche as people flail around in information overload and crave personalized Web experiences - and as advertisers seek to reach out and touch just you and just you and just you, not just a homogenized lowest common denominator.
Agents can work as technological machetes, clearing the lush data tangle of the Web.
Others, like Firefly, take stock of our buying and browsing habits and then offer purchase recommendations based on the behavior of like-minded people, while also facilitating the delivery of finely tuned ads. If you can define your interests and have your agent serve them up, you have the potential to simplify the world, narrowing it down to comfortable ideas and people who think like you. But this is the antithesis of how Maes views agents. Sometimes I envision an agent as having extra eyes, hands, or brains which are looking out for my interests. I am convinced that software will treat us in a more personalized way.