What Are AI Agents?
In short, you can think of an AI agent as a personal assistant that can not only understand the commands you give it but also action those commands for you.
You could liken it to asking your Echo dot to play a song from your Spotify account, except you have the ability to make much more advanced requests that actually create real world outcomes, such as ordering an Uber to to your door or planning & booking a trip for you without even needing to open your phone.
How do AI Agents Work?
Freaky right? Let that sink in for a sec.
There's now a device that is able to watch and observe how you use the apps on your phone or computer, and then mimic your exact behaviour on your behalf whenever you request it.
Scenario 1:
Normally when ordering a pizza from Uber eats, the process would go something like this:
- Navigate to Uber eats app.
- Find pizza places nearby.
- Look at Menu.
- Choose Pizza.
- Select add ons.
- Double check the order.
- Confirm order.
- Pizza Arrives.
Scenario 2:
Here’s what the process looks like when we add AI agents like Rabbit R1 into the mix:
1. Have a chat to Rabbit R1 about the pizza you want.
2. Pizza Arrives.
When you look at those 2 scenarios side by side, it’s clear this device is no Siri or Amazon Alexa. Although I do think Apple & Amazon will make these developments down the line, stuff like this has the potential to make our lives even easier.
For me personally, I HATE booking trips. Like flights, accommodation, planning what I’m going to do etc. It overwhelms me to no end. If I could just have a conversation with something reliable that could handle all the travel research for me, provide me with decent options and then book it all for me, I would be onboard with that.
I can also see technology like this being extremely useful for other mundane, overwhelming tasks that general consumers face on the daily like, managing finances, doing taxes, making healthcare appointments, replying to email, the list is endless and I believe it’s going to send our productivity through the roof another 10 fold on top of what chatGPT has already done.
Jesse elaborated that Rabbit OS is currently being trained on many popular apps and softwares most users are familiar with already and this is only the beginning of what these Large Action Models can do.
Imagine what happens AI agents like Rabbit R1 are trained on how to use every software in your business suite…
Ethical Impacts of AI Agents On Society
While I personally find innovations like the Rabbit R1 impressive (I've even got one on preorder...), I can’t help but think where this technology leads to in the end and the ethical impacts it’s going to have on our world at the current speed in which it’s advancing.
it's exciting and scary at the same time actually… I mean, sure, increasing productivity has always been a cornerstone in achieving higher GDP & prosperity, but at what point do things get so efficient that humans are longer required?
For example AI Agents like Rabbit R1 are just handheld devices that can take care of some simple admin tasks on your phone at this stage, but what happens when you give an autonomous decision making operating system a functional body? I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing AI agents doing a lot more than ordering a pizza for us, in fact they’ll be making the pizza and delivering it to us too.
And I’m not being dramatic when I say that. Mobile Aloha, an autonomous robot created by Stanford University, has been trained to cook basic foods autonomously and Tesla’s self-driving feature is a main selling point of their vehicles now. So if we’re already there in current developments, where are we going to be in another 12 months?
Essentially the more robots we develop to do human things the less people will be required to work and in a world where work is such a big part of our lives, I’m super intrigued as to what that kind of world looks like, especially at the rate in which it’s coming at us…
Of course, on top the societal shift AI agents will bring in general, other concerns are being voiced widely across the internet at the minute, specifically regarding how AI agents might be used for all sorts of nefarious purposes like cyber hacking, fraud and endless war.
There’s just so many things that need to be taken into account with the roll out of these things and yet prototypes are already being built and released to the public as early as March/April...
While I’m literally buzzing with excitement about how AI Agents are going to make my life easier, I’m actually concerned if governments are going to be able to act fast enough in terms of regulation vs innovation. I mean, we only just got the approval of Spot Bitcoin ETFs which has been in the making for a decade...
AI Agents In Review
On the whole, while the ethical implications of where AI agents could go seem quite frightening, I still have a rather optimistic outlook for what’s to come as humans have dealt with problems in the past much larger than not needing to go to work or regulate complex innovations.
That’s not to say the complete societal restructure that will probably come with it won’t be difficult to solve, but I certainly think we’ll make it through the other side and when we do, the world is just going to look a lot different than it does today.
On a final note, I think the best thing we can do as individuals in a world that is changing so quickly is do our best to stay informed about advancements like AI agents as they roll out, understand how they work and don’t be afraid to get in and play with them.
If we don’t, we risk being the old man next door that still refuses to use an internet banking app and will get left behind in a world that no longer exists.
If you’ve read this far, I’d love to hear your thoughts on AI agents and what you believe the pros and cons of having them in our world are in the comments.
Feel free to swing past my YouTube channel for more tech updates and until my next post, I'll see you next time!
Thom
The Meta Junkie