Bangladesh, June 5 -- ill AI provide everyone with a personal assistant? Maybe, but first, AI would have to change how it thinks.

To see why, consider a concrete example. Suppose it is Saturday morning and you need help figuring out a tricky weekend schedule. Your daughter's soccer team has a game from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., but she has been invited to a friend's birthday party from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. If you ask ChatGPT or Claude to resolve this conflict, they will both probably tell you to choose the soccer game, because your daughter's teammates are counting on her and it is important to honour commitments. And, time permitting, the chatbot might suggest that you can "stop in" to the party just before or after the game.

Although these ans...