The Future of Artificially Intelligent Assistants

Muthu Muthukrishnan, Andrew Tomkins, Larry P. Heck, Alborz Geramifard, Deepak Agarwal

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence has been present in literature at least since the ancient Greeks. Depictions present a wide range of perspectives of AI ranging from malefic overlords to depressive androids. Perhaps the most common recurring theme is the AI Assistant: C3PO from Star Wars; the Jetson's Rosie the Robot; the benign hyper-efficient Minds of Iain M. Banks's Culture novels; the eerie HAL 9000 of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Today, artificially intelligent assistants are actual products in the marketplace, based on startling recent progress in technologies like speaker-independent speech recognition. These products are in their infancy, but are improving rapidly. In this panel, we will address the product and technology landscape, and will ask a series of experts in the field plus the members of the audience to take a stance on what the future of artificially intelligent assistants will look like.