It is time to hand over another large portion of our cognitive function to machines. Here’s how.
Below every Google search result is a link that says “Similar pages”. Search for “Ford” on Google and then click on Similar Pages. Google takes you to a new page with links to GM, Honda, Chrysler, etc. This is tremendously helpful when I do research on the web. For example, I can quickly find the competitors of a business I am researching. The “Similar pages” link is created automagically by computers using semantic analysis of page content (see TouchGraph for incredible visualizations of “Similar pages” results).
Now imagine if you could do a “Similar pages” search with Google Desktop Search (or Spotlight on the Mac). Imagine if you could apply “Similar pages” across all file types on your desktop and the web. Write an idea down, click on “Similar pages” and pull up RSS articles, web pages from your browser history, emails, articles from your blog, and IM conversations that are related to what you are thinking about right now.
There is no need to limit the “Similar pages” to your personal digital archive. The search could include the entire web as well other people’s personal Google Desktop Search archives.
Steven Berlin Johnson uses an information organizer called DevonThink which has a similar feature called “See Also”. In “Tool For Thought” he describes how he used the “See Also” feature of DevonThink to start with the keyword “urban ecosystem” and quickly find a few useful quotes from various sources (including essays that he himself had written and forgotten about!).
We have mature search and semantic analysis technology to create “See Also” right now across all file types on the desktop and the web. This powerful tool would automate the synthesis of new ideas out of previously disconnected ones. Today, we use computers to store, manipulate, and communicate information. But we don’t use them to automatically synthesize new information.
“See Also” would significantly expand our dependence on computers — we would come to rely on computers to make automagic associations between ideas — just as our brains magically create associations now. Today, we make associations between ideas in our individual brains. This tool would automatically create associations between ideas in the brains of the entire population at once (the files on all desktops and servers on the net).
Now would someone kindly create what I am proposing for Spotlight on the Mac please?
In the spirit of making more connections, see also: Google Sets, Memex, MyLifeBits.
Update: Mike Siverd pointed me to Nat Friedman’s Dashboard which provides some of the functionality I am describing. That led me to an article on Microsoft’s “implicit query” technology. Apparently the Linux world is also drooling over the upcoming Beagle.
To be clear, I’m not looking for a tool that brings up information based on whomever I am addressing my current email to (although that is a great start). I am looking for a tool that uses semantic analysis to make non-obvious connections.
Bradley Rhodes also pointed me to his Ph.D. thesis, The Rememberance Agent which was at least five years ahead of its time. Even better, he had his Rememberance Agent integrated into his wearable computer so it was with him all the time. His tag line is great: “Because serendipity is too important to be left to chance…”