This is how I would like it to be only because I can't trust it to treat my information well. If it was a trustworthy system, this would be an incredible capability.
It would be great to have this kind of agent and trust it is truly working for you, yes. Given economic (and political) reality, I don't think anyone needs to wonder where things are most likely to land. There will be practically no market for actual user agents that work purely on behalf of end users. Rather, "your" agent will tattle to the police if you do something naughty, tell advertisers how you spend all your time and every preference you express, tattle to copyright holders if you play music for a party of unlicensed listeners, or just make sure you're billed properly every time you attend such a party. I think Gates refers to the question of how data sovereignty and privacy play into this as an "open question" in order to avoid addressing it, knowing full well that lack of data sovereignty turns this tool of empowerment into something much more dystopian.
I'm anxiously watching two developing spaces for this reason:
1. Homomorphic Encryption
2. Self-Hosted AI Systems
Homomorphic encryption is the idea that you can perform ML operations on encrypted data -- so that the providers of powerful AI need not know precisely what data you have.
Self-Hosted AI is just what it sounds like -- what if your Alexa processed on-device, and never left your home? What if your mobile devices could "phone home" to it from wherever you were, using an encrypted tunnel?
The second point is possible today, but the issue is keeping your local model to pace with the cloud offerings.
I think device specific self hosted AI is coming. At least that's what I see from marketing stuff the chip companies send me. I think it could make some sense from the a cost perspective. The manufacturer of an appliance likely doesn't want to pay reoccurring fees for smart features which require uploading audio and video to the cloud.
Worth noting that that's probably how most people will look at things, and I'm not sure if most people have the background to be able to understand the privacy issues.
I guess I'm suggesting that Mr. Gates is probably right, even if it makes us here on HN uncomfortable.
