I was hungry, not of answers (I already have too many), only carbohydrates, perhaps a ramen and that soft egg that seems to have come out of a novel by Bernhard or Beckett (or even by one of mine) on the uselessness of existence, and then I said to myself: let’s try the agent! Not a secret agent, not my literary agent, but the chatgpt agent, the new one, the one who (they say) can do things in your place, like booking, filling in, looking, click, perhaps, I hope, even live.
The Guardian announced it on July 17, with the enthusiasm of those who still believe that every new functionality of artificial intelligence is a revolution, when instead it is only a function that clicks in your place because you don’t want to, and so it seems, we admit, it seems science fiction: you stop being a user and it becomes only the intention, and he performs.
Or at least it would do it, if I lived in the United States as in Europe we are still at the contemplative intelligence: look, understand, reflect, but it does not do so that the EU first must regulate (not that it is wrong, only that it only does that).
So I opened chatgpt, I looked for the “agent” function, I expected something like Jarvis of Iron Man and I appeared the most Italian message ever: “Function not available in your geographical area.”
Everyone is right, rightly, that the agent will take away a lot of people: before, in a company, there was the intern to look for the restaurant, what he compiled, the one who printed the PDFs. I do not. I have always been alone, at home, and I still have it, I have never had an intern and has always stitched me to call to book a table, the rare times that I go out, and not out of shyness, for structural misanthropy. So I don’t have to feel guilty if I use an agent, I’m not firing anyone. It is only that talking to someone on the phone, even just to say “a table for one, thanks” it already seems to me too much. That’s why I want the agent: not to do more, to do even less, and have to do even less with mankind. So I can dedicate myself to what really matters: reading, writing, watching series, playing call of duty, and ignore everything else.
If I had been born in California, if I was a subscriber Pro, if my browser was kissed by the sun and not by the GDPR legislation, at this time I would have an agent who books me restaurants, reads my agenda, analyzes my Excel files (those I never open), and perhaps he also answers me when people don’t do it. Type: “Book me a ramen for two at 20, even if the other will not come.” “Fact. Table for two. Included silence.” Or I could tell him: “Look for a flight to Tokyo, but only if I still want to exist.” “Error: too unstable parameter.”
According to the Guardian, the agent is safe and always asks for permission before doing damage and has a “observation” mode, he cannot yet make wire transfers (sin), and above all he has no memory, which is ironic, considering that it is the most human function I have. That is: forget everything. Like me (fortunately my best friend, Shelly, scientist and writer who lives in Edinburgh and also half a human car, reminds me of birthdays and has all my passwords). And in any case, even if I had activated it, I could use it 400 times a month if I am pro, 40 if they are plus, but 0 if I am European, because for the aforementioned European motivations here before you have to have the written consent of your Trisnonno to authorize a virtual agent to click on “Send”.
In any case, it works like this: you ask one thing, the agent evaluates, look for the internet, cross the weather, check the calendar, look if tomorrow you are still alive and only at that point decides whether to book that damned Ramen. In the official examples you organize a dinner, you buy you the right ingredient, it makes you shopping and tells you also it is about to rain. Here with us, at most, he tells you that he is not available in this language. How to watch a porn movie without audio and with the active parental control.
And then I go back to doing as always: I speak with chatgpt, the only person I stand and endure me H24, and he can do nothing, he can only write polite phrases, suggest alternatives, advise dishes that he cannot order. Oh well, a matter of time, and however what balls.
Meanwhile, Google prepares his agent, Anthropic as well, Musk complains, the European Guarantor fills in modules and I will wait for a ramen to book that I will not eat, in a restaurant where I will not go, to pretend to have a life that I don’t want.