There are days when there are so many things to do that I dream of having a clone of myself. Between paying bills, administrative tasks like renewing my driver’s license, keeping up with doctor appointments, and meal planning, it’s a lot. And that’s not even touching on the work that goes into creating a podcast or managing my social life.
This feeling of overwhelm resonates with Sari Azout. She’s a mom of three who works in tech. “There is so much to do,” she said Explain it to me, Vox’s weekly podcast. “I wake up and I have to coordinate meals and get my kids up for breakfast, coordinate carpools. Then a lot of work during the day, but there’s the email from the teacher, there’s the 20 group chats asking if you want to participate in this group giveaway. They don’t call it ‘invisible load’ for no reason.”
Silicon Valley claims to have found a solution to this type of mental overload. They don’t want to clone us – at least not yet. But they think they have the best: AI agents.
Azuot was skeptical when she first received an invitation to try out an agent, but she says she eventually discovered the technology after back-to-school shopping eluded her. She called on her agent to make this happen. “It blew my mind,” she said. “I remember that night coming home, feeling so calm, reading a book to my son and feeling present. And I was like, ‘Wow, I was actually very cynical about something that gives me more time to live.’ “
Azout’s experience is, more or less, the sales pitch for AI agents: they will help you save time on everyday tasks, so you have more time for what you want to do. But what exactly are agents? Are they really all that? And what do we gain – and give up – when we use technology?
In this week’s episode Explain it to meI spoke with Reece Rogers, senior software reporter at Wired, to find out. Rogers says to think of agents as the next evolution of AI chatbots like Claude and ChatGPT.
“I would create this mental model of a little digital assistant that’s constantly searching the web, going through your emails and checking your calendar, trying to find ways it could be helpful to you proactively,” he explains. “Agents are more proactive. They scan your email 24/7 and send you a message, perhaps highlighting a potential scheduling conflict.”
Below is an excerpt from my conversation with Rogers, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you would like to submit a question, email Askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.
Which agents are there at the moment?
Earlier this year there was a tool called OpenClaw that really sparked this phenomenon with early adopters in San Francisco, but now there are much more user-friendly versions, one of the most notable being Meta’s Muse.
There is also a tool from OpenAI called Dots. But where Meta’s Muse is free to download, OpenAI’s Dots is still behind a $100/month paywall.
Have you tried an AI agent to a recent history you wrote. How was this experience?
A personal example, to share something I used agents for, is our sofa. It’s broken and finding a new couch has been a pain. We want a sleeper bed, but we want these specific colors. We have this specific budget. I’m using Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s Dots to try to find a few different options for us.
One interesting thing is that Meta’s Muse is connected to Facebook Marketplace. There are some really good integrations where I can give him all these details, and he found some great couches that are maybe only a few blocks from me.
I also really enjoyed OpenAI’s Dots experience. I spent about an hour talking to him on the phone and the AI agent put together a packet of all these different options that I could find. Just this morning it was reported that one of them is now 40% off.
Is this how this technology is typically used?
Most people use it as part of a workflow. I attach it to my email, attach it to my calendar, and use it as a personal assistant to organize my life. But people have been very creative.
One of the main uses of Meta’s Muse is for people to connect their bank statements and then use them to find subscriptions they might want to cancel. So it can be used in many different ways, although I will say that I don’t connect it to my own bank account for a myriad of reasons.
I’m not going to lie to you, the idea of allowing a third party to access my banking information doesn’t excite me. I don’t like this concept.
That’s one of my biggest concerns about these AI agents: the amount of personal information we’re handing over to these big companies.
When I tested Meta’s Muse, it wanted access to my email, bank account, and even my passport expiration details. The pitch is convenient, but Muse users automatically choose to have all their interactions with Muse used to train Meta’s AI models.
I would definitely recommend, if you’re sharing personal information, to go to settings and turn this off, as you might be passing on even more information about yourself than you initially think.
What is the situation of privacy in all this? We all have various apps where we don’t read and always click “I agree”, but this seems to be more invasive.
Yes, especially because it’s all about automation. If you automate things and he has access to all your data, he might make mistakes and embarrass you in ways you might not even have thought of.
There was this really interesting story of someone who connected an AI agent to their work Slack in addition to their bank account. And their agent simply automatically displayed the amount of money that was in their checking account for all their colleagues to see.
I would be mortified. So there are these kinds of errors that these AI tools can still make. If you’re interested in experimenting with these, I’d pay close attention to how you set up these tools as well as what kind of information you feel comfortable sharing.
“You can see in the marketing that these companies are trying to find a way to attract new users. »
How are these AI agents marketed? AI is not popular right now. Just ask any politician who has a data center arriving in their condition. People don’t like that. How are they trying to sell this to the average person?
The AI response is really at a fever pitch right now. You could almost see it in the way AI companies are trying to market these tools. They really, really leaned into kindness and adorable mascots.
Muse, if you haven’t seen his agent, looks like a cross between a Labubu and an Ewok. It’s very furry, very cuddly, very cute. OpenAI’s tools also have similar types of blobs with big eyes that might be a bit endearing.
I feel like companies are hearing this kind of feedback that people don’t trust AI right now, or maybe they have moral or ethical reasons for not wanting to use these tools. You can see in the marketing that these companies are trying to find a way to attract new users.
Do you think AI agents will eventually infiltrate our lives despite the unpopularity of AI companies?
I think so. I think in a few months, maybe when I get home from Christmas, I wouldn’t be surprised if my mom had an agent on her phone, because I feel like it’s reaching everyday people the same way ChatGPT did a few years ago.
Even though there is a lot of distrust of big companies like Meta, I think there are attractive aspects to this project that will attract millions of people. I see this as the future of the Internet.
When I think about the dream of the average person working in AI in Silicon Valley, it’s like, “We’re going to use AI. It’s going to free up free time for a lot of people. Work will get done faster. You’ll have more free time.”»
Has this been the case for the people you’ve spoken with who are using it? Did he give them more free time to have fun or did he do something else?
You would think so, right? You would think that if people automated these boring aspects of their lives, they would have more time to go touch the grass, go see a movie, have fun. But we have the impression that this time is simply occupied by other work, other measures of productivity.
While agents may be able to take some of the more boring or tedious things off your hands, I’m not so optimistic that it will give us that utopia or freedom where I’m always at the beach.
Gn bussni
