Blog: What Will Change Everything? Ask a Computer Scientist

What Will Change Everything? Ask a Computer Scientist
ITworldcanada.com (01/06/09) Schick, Shane

John Brockman's Edge.org Web site recently posed the question "What will change everything?" to a group of academics. The answer for computer scientist Roger Schank is a machine that provides knowledge as needed. Schank says information in enterprise databases or on personal computers should find us, rather than having people constantly search for it. Schank views information as stories rather than content, and envisions a future of just-in-time storytelling. "To put this another way, an archive of key strategic ideas about how to achieve goals under certain conditions is just the right resource to be interacting with enabling a good story to pop up when you need it," Schank says. He says goal-directed indexing is about organizing information so that it can be cross-referenced the next time an example of what users need comes up, and in the context of a story that users will understand or remember. Schank says researchers should begin to focus on how to monitor user behavior so that machines can understand their goals and index information appropriately. "We will all become much more likely to profit from humanity's collective wisdom by having a computer at the ready to help us think," he says.

View Full Article