比尔盖茨谈《未来之路》25年后：做出的正确和错误的预测(3)

如今，人们很容易忘记互联网给我们的社会带来了多大的改变。当《未来之路》问世时，人们还在使用纸质地图导航。他们用 CD 听音乐。照片是在暗室中冲洗的。如果你需要一个送礼物的点子，你可以寻求朋友的建议（面对面或通过电话）。如今，你可以使用数字工具更轻松地完成所有这些操作，其成本在大多数情况下也会更低。
That’s all covered in the book （I was thinking and learning about these things obsessively back then）。 For instance， there’s a chapter on video on demand and computers that will fit in your pocket。
所有这些在这本书里都有涉及（那时候我一直着魔般地去思考和学习这些东西）。例如，有一章介绍了视频点播和小到能放到你口袋里的电脑。
One thing I was probably too optimistic about is the rise of digital agents。 It is true that we have Cortana， Siri， and Alexa， but working with them is still far from the rich experience I had in mind in 1995。 They don’t yet “learn about your requirements and preferences in much the way that a human assistant does，” as I wrote at the time。 We’re just at the beginning of what agents will eventually be capable of。
对于有件事我也许过分乐观了，那就是数字助手的兴起。的确，我们有 Cortana、Siri 和 Alexa，但它们使用起来距离我在 1995 年想象到的丰富体验还相距甚远。它们还不能做到我所写的 “像人类助手那样了解你的要求和偏好”。从数字助手最终将具备的能力来看，我们尚处于初级阶段。
Another idea that’s central to The Road Ahead—that technology would allow unprecedented social networking—has pretty much come to pass。 I am surprised， though， by the way social networks are both bringing us together and contributing to a more polarized atmosphere。 I didn’t anticipate how much people would choose to filter out different perspectives and harden their own views。