Tech

The Inventor Of Email Regularly Receives Death Threats

Giuseppe Macri Tech Editor
Font Size:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty lecturer and inventor of email V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai is upset that people don’t appreciate his invention, but that isn’t going to stop him from improving it.

“When I tell people I invented email, the first thing they say is, ‘I want to kill you,'” Ayyadurai said in the Wall Street Journal this week. “Email is here to stay — it’s time we got better at using it.”

Ayyadurai said we spend up to 38 percent of our day managing email, and that the future of electronic messaging will feature artificial intelligence “that will know you as well as the secretary of 1978 once did, and you will be able to dictate to it.”

The lecturer said the inbox of the future will automatically prioritize, sort, file and archive incoming messages as well as draft reasonable responses — all based on past user history — which will simply require a review and edit before being sent.

“So you can go back to the future: Be the boss, and your mail system will be the secretary.”

Follow Giuseppe on Twitter and Facebook.

Tags : email mit
Giuseppe Macri