I Think I Found an AI Agent Worth the Risk
I Think I Found an AI Agent Worth the Risk
我认为我找到了一个值得冒险尝试的 AI 智能体
One of the first things I did when I left my full-time job at WIRED was give Claude Cowork access to my email and calendar. After reporting on artificial intelligence for years, I was curious about what the technology could do for me. I had imagined Cowork as a hyper-capable digital assistant, but was let down to discover that it was more like interacting with a regular chatbot, albeit one with extra tools. What did I want it to do? I had no idea.
当我离开《连线》（WIRED）的全职工作后，我做的第一件事就是让 Claude Cowork 访问我的电子邮件和日历。在报道了多年人工智能后，我很好奇这项技术能为我做些什么。我曾将 Cowork 想象成一个能力超强的数字助理，但令我失望的是，它更像是与一个普通的聊天机器人互动，只不过多了一些工具而已。我想要它做什么？我毫无头绪。
Then Instinct, an invite-only AI agent that communicates with users through iMessage and WhatsApp, started popping off in the Bay Area. It connects to your email, calendar, and messaging apps. Think of it as OpenClaw for normies. The company, which launched in private beta in February, is reportedly in talks to raise $1 billion on top of the $350 million it’s already raised, bringing its valuation to $10 billion, according to The Information.
随后，一款名为 Instinct 的 AI 智能体开始在湾区走红，它采用邀请制，通过 iMessage 和 WhatsApp 与用户交流。它能连接你的电子邮件、日历和消息应用。你可以把它看作是普通人的“OpenClaw”。据《The Information》报道，这家公司于 2 月开启内测，目前正商谈在已筹集 3.5 亿美元的基础上再融资 10 亿美元，使其估值达到 100 亿美元。
Instinct’s moment in the spotlight comes as Meta is experiencing its own unexpected burst of popularity thanks to Muse, an AI assistant the tech giant launched earlier this month. As of writing, Muse is the most popular free app in Apple’s App Store, with more than 900,000 downloads, according to third-party estimates. The commentator class on X seems genuinely excited about it, despite the fact that it rolled out with a serious security vulnerability that would have “let attackers do ‘whatever’ they wanted on a victim’s Mac,” according to Ars Technica. I’m not about to give Meta a ton of my personal information, but if Muse can keep me logged into Bloomberg or unsubscribe me from Hot Yoga São Paulo, which has been emailing me once a week since 2017, I’ll reconsider.
Instinct 的高光时刻正值 Meta 凭借本月初推出的 AI 助手 Muse 意外爆红之际。据第三方估计，截至撰稿时，Muse 是苹果 App Store 中最受欢迎的免费应用，下载量已超过 90 万次。X 平台上的评论界人士似乎对它非常兴奋，尽管据 Ars Technica 报道，该应用发布时存在一个严重的安全漏洞，可能会“让攻击者在受害者的 Mac 上为所欲为”。我并不打算向 Meta 提供大量个人信息，但如果 Muse 能帮我保持 Bloomberg 的登录状态，或者帮我退订那家自 2017 年起每周给我发邮件的“圣保罗热瑜伽”（Hot Yoga São Paulo），我会重新考虑。
Agent Provocateur
智能体挑衅者
The divide between people who use AI agents for everything and those who have never tried one has never been wider. It explains, in part, why tech CEOs were largely caught off guard by the data center backlash. If you think agents can automate the majority of people’s administrative drudgery and turbocharge their productivity, the costs and disruptions associated with building data centers might look like an acceptable trade-off. But if you’re using chatbots as a fancy form of Google, that deal is probably much less appealing.
那些事事都使用 AI 智能体的人与从未尝试过的人之间的鸿沟从未如此之大。这在一定程度上解释了为什么科技公司 CEO 们对数据中心引发的强烈抵制感到措手不及。如果你认为智能体可以自动化处理大多数人的行政琐事并大幅提升生产力，那么建设数据中心所带来的成本和干扰或许是可以接受的代价。但如果你只是把聊天机器人当作一种高级版的谷歌来用，那么这个交易可能就没那么吸引人了。
The overarching problem, as technology journalist Jasmine Sun writes, is that “most people’s problems are not software-shaped, and most won’t notice even when they are.” AI agents, like chatbots, still require a lot of input and direction from users. If you know what you want—help with your homework, a virtual girlfriend—the tools are eager to provide. But if you don’t, well, welcome to the permanent underclass.
正如科技记者 Jasmine Sun 所写，核心问题在于“大多数人的问题并非软件能解决的，即便能解决，大多数人也察觉不到。”AI 智能体和聊天机器人一样，仍然需要用户提供大量的输入和指导。如果你知道自己想要什么——比如写作业的帮助、一个虚拟女友——这些工具会很乐意提供。但如果你不知道，好吧，欢迎加入“永久底层”行列。
I was eager to avoid such a fate. I may not be agentic, but I like to think I’m action-oriented. Surely I could identify a software-shaped problem in my life. I had used Claude previously to generate a few freelance invoices, saving me approximately 10 minutes. It was nice, but not life-changing. I decided to give Instinct a try.
我渴望避免这种命运。我可能不是那种“智能体化”的人，但我喜欢认为自己是行动导向的。我肯定能在生活中找到一个可以用软件解决的问题。我之前曾用 Claude 生成过几张自由职业发票，节省了大约 10 分钟。这很不错，但谈不上改变生活。我决定试一试 Instinct。
If you talk to AI researchers about Instinct, you’ll hear the phrase “form factor” a lot. Instinct got the form factor right—no open text box, just iMessage, WhatsApp, and a few helpful prompts. It’s hard to overstate how important this is. Rather than trying to figure out for yourself how to make the chat experience more useful, you’re texting with an agent that’s suggesting things it can do for you, and then actually doing them. And unlike other agents in this space, it doesn’t text too much. I tried a competing agent called Lindy for a week and deleted it after it texted me each morning and started popping into Zoom meetings without my approval.
如果你和 AI 研究人员谈论 Instinct，你会经常听到“外形规格”（form factor）这个词。Instinct 在外形规格上做得很好——没有开放的文本框，只有 iMessage、WhatsApp 和一些有用的提示。这一点的重要性怎么强调都不为过。你不需要自己去琢磨如何让聊天体验更有用，而是直接与一个智能体发短信，它会主动建议能为你做的事情，然后真正去执行。而且与该领域的其他智能体不同，它不会发太多信息。我曾试用过一个名为 Lindy 的竞争对手智能体一周，但在它每天早上给我发短信，并不经我允许就跳进 Zoom 会议后，我把它删除了。
For its first project, I gave Instinct my itinerary for a work trip to Venice, Italy. I had it book reservations based on where I was going to be, including WhatsApping hole-in-the-wall spots. Success! Restaurant reservations appear to be a gateway drug for many agent-curious people, and I was no exception. (It’s worth noting that while Muse can also call restaurants to book reservations on your behalf, some of those calls are reportedly made by humans in call centers, according to reporting in 404 Media).
作为第一个项目，我把去意大利威尼斯出差的行程交给了 Instinct。我让它根据我的行程预订餐厅，包括通过 WhatsApp 预订那些不起眼的小店。成功了！餐厅预订似乎是许多对智能体感兴趣的人的“入门毒品”，我也不例外。（值得注意的是，虽然 Muse 也可以代你致电餐厅预订，但据 404 Media 报道，其中一些电话实际上是由呼叫中心的人工客服拨打的）。
Next, I gave Instinct a more complicated task. I had already booked a trip to New York in November with my sister when WIRED asked me to attend the WIRED World Fair, which was taking place in Miami during the day before. Unfortunately, I’d booked a saver fare, meaning I couldn’t move the ticket, and if I missed the first leg of the trip it would automatically cancel the whole thing.
接下来，我给了 Instinct 一个更复杂的任务。我原本已经和姐姐预订了 11 月去纽约的旅行，这时《连线》邀请我参加在迈阿密举行的 WIRED 世界博览会，时间就在旅行的前一天。不幸的是，我订的是特价票，这意味着我无法改签，如果我错过了第一程，整个行程就会自动取消。
Could Instinct cancel my trip and get a refund? To my surprise, it could. The agent detected that Alaska had moved my flight 90 minutes earlier, a fact I’d completely missed, which qualified me for a full refund. It canceled my ticket, saving me roughly $550, and rebooked my one-way return to San Francisco. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starting to feel the AGI.
Instinct 能取消我的行程并获得退款吗？令我惊讶的是，它做到了。该智能体检测到阿拉斯加航空将我的航班提前了 90 分钟，而我完全忽略了这一事实，这使我有资格获得全额退款。它取消了我的机票，为我节省了大约 550 美元，并重新预订了回旧金山的单程票。我不知道你们怎么想，但我开始感受到 AGI（通用人工智能）的力量了。
Unnatural Instincts
不自然的本能
This is where I have to pause and acknowledge the risks of using Instinct. There are a lot. People have reported that when they tried to disconnect the agent from their email, they found out it was retaining a copy of their inboxes anyway. One venture capitalist said he was banned from Resy after the bot pinged its API roughly 200 times per hour while trying to make a reservation. Another tech investor said he deleted the app after determining that it would be trivially easy for Instinct to be phished.
在这里，我必须停下来承认使用 Instinct 的风险。风险非常多。有人报告说，当他们试图断开该智能体与电子邮件的连接时，发现它仍然保留了收件箱的副本。一位风险投资家表示，由于该机器人试图预订时每小时向 Resy 的 API 发送约 200 次请求，导致他被 Resy 封号。另一位科技投资者表示，在确定 Instinct 极易受到钓鱼攻击后，他删除了该应用。
Instinct’s Terms of Service are pretty far-reaching, allowing the company to use at least some of your conversations to train its AI models. I also experienced an annoying (if minor) snafu: One day, Instinct canceled a DoorDash order that was seriously delayed, forcing me to forfeit $64. (I’d explicitly told it to cancel only if I could get a refund.) This alerted me to another thing Instinct is very, very good at: profusely apologizing without offering to pay for its mistakes.
Instinct 的服务条款范围相当广泛，允许该公司使用至少部分对话来训练其 AI 模型。我还经历了一个令人恼火（虽然是小事）的故障：有一天，Instinct 取消了一个严重延误的 DoorDash 订单，导致我损失了 64 美元。（我明确告诉过它只有在能退款的情况下才取消。）这让我意识到 Instinct 非常擅长的另一件事：在不赔偿错误的情况下进行连篇累牍的道歉。
The company Instinct, which shares the same name as its flagship AI agent, di… （注：原文在此处中断） Instinct 公司（与旗下的旗舰 AI 智能体同名）……