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To give you a hint of where I’m headed, let’s revisit some classic AI problem solving tasks, which are as timely now as they were in Newell’s day. I’ve worked on many of them, and I’m sure you have too.

How would you, as a person, approach any of these tasks today? Undoubtedly, you’d start by searching the Web, where you’d find thousands of relevant information sources and services.

Do you think a little AI could help?

If I were building an AI system to solve these problems, I would start with the Web and gradually add a little AI here and there to automate time consuming functions and integrate them into a solution.

Take travel, for example. I might create a simple agent to check many travel sites for available flights and fares, and another that used the results to select the optimal itinerary based on my personal frequent flyer accounts and calendar schedule.

Now imagine giving millions of people this ability to create agents that incrementally automate tasks, as well as the ability to publish those agents as services that others can use and build upon. Before long, interesting forms of collective intelligence should begin to emerge.