- a [[conference]]. - [[2022-08-16]] - #event https://www.eventbrite.com/e/render-tools-for-thinking-tickets-387188961607 - #go https://www.betaworks.com/event/render-tools-for-thinking#livestream-section - organized by [[betaworks]] - I'll be [[scribing]] live, let's see how it goes :) - If you're viewing this on anagora.org, you can join in and take notes in the public document ("stoa") below. - I'll use one section below per session; I'll probably only do one or two live though. - [[plexus]] will be used here (hadn't heard of it) - [[render]] - see also [[tools for thought]] (a different group/term, but with some overlapping members) ## [[How Do We Define Tools for Thinking and Why Do They Matter?]] - [[john borthwick]] [[jerry michalski]] - [[john borthwick]] - How can a [[computer]] be a better [[tool for thinking]]? - The word information -> better forming our minds. - How to take all the [[ideas]] of a flow of information and analyzing them as they influence the world. - What can we do with well tuned datasets?? - [[open protocols]] - all the data could be owned by people contributing it, against the recent trend towards [[silos]] - [[Associative thinking]]; [[scaffolding]] them together; let them simmer in our brains. - Taking a walk, going to sleep. - Scaffold, then [[sleep]]. - [[jerry michalski]] - was introduced to his now wife as the [[biggest brain]] on the internet, high expectations :) - [[protocol]] - [[jazz hands]] means agreement - [[downward jazz]] means disagreement - #push [[thebrain]] ~ [[the brain]] - #push [[jerry's brain]] - one [[mindmap]] since [[1997]], this dec will be [[25]] years - #go https://jerrysbrain.com - [[one million]] thoughts - [[dioramas]] out of [[toothpicks]] - [[opinions]] - [[hypercard]] could have been the future (might be still!) - [[bubble charter]] - long standing addiction to the tool - [[demo]] - [[mind mapping]] - [[visual analysis tools]] - [[mapping tools for thinking]] - [[team mode]] is not what he'd like - how to allow different people to use different tools, yet still create an aggregated insight - we're dumber than we normally would be - [[kardashians]] family details vs [[politics]], how we focus our attention - building a [[shared memory]] is a piece in the puzzle we need to solve to make society better - [[better recall]] leads to [[reinforcement]] - two more points - [[zettelkasten]] - [[roam cult]] ~ [[the cult of roam]] - [[civilizational]] aspect to this - [[open access]] influencing research, journalism, politics and governance - #push [[agora]] - [[making better decisions together as a society]] - first thing recorded was [[theatre]] - put the camera on a [[dolly]] and you get the vocabulary of cinema (pans, …) - [[internet]] is stuck in v1 - we have not levelled up because of [[drm]] and other constraints - we need to liberate it and instrument it or make it [[executable]] ## [[Inflection Points for Tools for Thinking]] - [[john borthwick]] - introduces [[daniel doyon]] [[tristan homsi]] - #push [[readwise]] - [[daniel doyon]] [[tristan homsi]] - [[superhuman]] - passion for: [[reading]] and [[spaced repetition]] - how to improve [[reading]] the same way computers improved [[writing]] - tool to [[resurface]] (-> [[reinforce]]) - started with [[zapier]] - [[john borthwick]] where do you see us by the end of the decade? - belief that there will be a lot of change in this space - when they started, [[evernote]] was the most popular request -- that's changed a lot since then - on a macro level - (missed one beat here I think) - paradigm shift with #push [[notion]] (2017-2020), block based architecture - other innovation: [[multiplayer]] - then #push [[roam]] (blew up in 2021), first somewhat mainstream [[graph database]] - [[backlinks]] and [[transclusion]] - [[daily notes]] page - then many tools coming online, but no clear next item of big innovation - #push [[agora]] - waiting for the next [[inflection point]] - why did [[evernote]] get stuck? - they nailed the [[consumer]] use case, never were able to do [[enterprise]] like [[notion]] did - that held them back relative to notion - they got very distracted in the middle of the growth, they were developing a [[recipe app]] - they fumbled their way - one of the promises of the internet: - you can just build anything, no need to ask for permission (if you have the basic resources, etc.) - [[notion]] raised VC, a million or two before going mainstream - [[roam]] raised very little before really growing - #push [[readwise]] didn't want to raise any money, unsure of the venture scale - started charging a monthly fee for a consumer product (shock! :)), now can support a small team - [[bootstrapped]] - if you don't have the enterprise use case and are consumer based instead, it's unclear how sustainable you can be a priori (-> in the current landscape; but that might be ripe for a change, enough people *want* a way out of walled gardens, want a choice.) - [[q&a]] - [[anki]] for writing? - have been exploring something, dogfood - [[theme reviews]] - some people do this: - [[word vomit]] the start of an essay - delineate [[fragments]], do theme reviews (on key terms?) over weeks - -> [[wikilinks]]? - then [[sequence]]] - [[repeat]] - you can get to 80% of the work fast this way - how does this compare to [[gpt-3]] generation? asker feels that AI based suggestions aren't really that great - can't speak about better/worse, but for some people this might feel easier - [[core thesis for ai]] - the AI can't be the product - you won't print an essay ghost written by [[gpt-3]] - -> yet? what about the recent paper that *was* written by [[gpt-3]], and for which they got first [[authorship]]? - [[john borthwick]] many silos enforcing separation between ideas; also a risk of being fascinated by the technology or the tool - [[jerry michalski]] is a good example of focusing on the thoughts, on the information, going beyond the [[tool]] - it feels like the space has gone [[mainstream]] now - but we're really still in the [[early adopter]] phase - [[audio]]? - grown a lot in audio - 15-20% a year (check?) - transforming audio to a block or a highlight: there are early attempts, podcasting [[air]] or [[snipped]] (?) - not a seamless experience - [[uncanny valley]] - [[transcripts]] almost at human level but not quite - but it seems like [[text to speech]] and [[speech to text]] can be assumed to be coming, you can probably assume that transcripts for everything will be available - #push [[amazon]] - one company is controlling ebooks and is making it hard to innovate (if I got that right?) - bet: innovation more likely either on [[podcast]] side or [[text to speech]] - [[john borthwick]] the downsides of [[silos]] - [[readwise]] has done a great job at getting at least [[highlight]] access - [[betaworks]] did [[findings]] - founders: [[spiritual predecessor]] of [[readwise]] - #q over the last n years the [[tools for thought]] space has been changing; how has usage of your tool changed with that? - started with [[srs]] - started with [[kindle]] highlights, disentangling and making useful - there was a period when people thought they would do anything in a particular tool, like [[roam]] - people were trying to get *everything* into [[roam]]: putting documents in blocks there to be able to annotate them. - that has [[cooled down]] - at some point they asked: what's the number one feature we need to implement to actually make money, charge for it? - [[evernote]] was the first big one, that would not be the case before - [[tweet threads]] - the user of [[twitter]] has helped advance the space - #q if you did [[enterprise]], what would you do? - [[consumer vs enterprise]] - vs - [[single player]] vs [[multiplayer]] - enterprise is in the back of their minds, but it's not currently core - enterprise saas is a great business model though, but there's not as clear an enterprise vision for now - #q on [[information density]] are people reading slower? it takes twice as long to listen than to read - attention is more often split when listening - less information absorbed when people are listening - are you able to unplug and read for, say, 20 minutes? - "throw all your technology away, go into a cottage and read paper" - the problem can probably be solved this way, but that's not feasible actually - "fight technology with technology" - maybe it's good to be able to read on your smartphone, how do you accomplish that? - [[emergent reading]] (?) - #q it seems you're in the position of [[owning the plumbing]]: can you lean into that, are you blocked by the players in this space? - it would be great to have an [[open standard]] - [[annotations]] [[hypothesis]] - [[chrome]] has started to add a little bit to it - but it's very [[web focused]] - (the stream glitched for me here, lost about a minute) - [[john borthwick]] on the [[knowledge blob]]: it should be transportable - they had to come up with their own core abstractions when developing their reading app. - why don't we build on top of a [[block]] architecture]]? - "like it was the fashion at the time" :) - metaphor from user feedback: no, it doesn't really work, it's too soupy (?) - it felt "too liquid" - how to turn [[fluid thoughts]] into [[coherent text]] - [[blocks]] -> [[docs]] - [[document]] ~ [[doc]] - you have [[blocks]] and [[docs]] - imagine your thoughts being injected into a doc - meaning exchange for [[knowledge blobs]] - annotation - highlight - notes that you take while reading - when you want to read a 120 tweet thread, you actually want to see that as a [[document]] that you can [[annotate]] as a whole - #q on the toolchain aspect of the [[plumbing]]: love how you can jump from tool to tool. How much effort do you put into customizing the ingestion engines? On the Enterprise side: would love [[readwise]] for [[slack]] :) - hacked into something like the latter :) - -> I think bots like [[agora bot]] are sufficient? - [[jinja]] seemed to solve all problems for customization cross tool - [[low floor, high ceiling approach]] - -> interesting, [[agora protocol]] seems related - #q Use cases in education; have you been thought about getting involved with schools? Have you thought about the impact of adoption by students who could be forced to use it? :) - Education just hasn't been something they've been successful at, haven't found a way to penetrate that field. - -> [[hypothes.is]] collaboration? ## [[Demo: Protocol Design for Tools for Thinking]] - [[gordon brander]] on [[subconscious]] - (87 people watching at this point in time) - actually talking about something on a larger scale than [[subconscious]] - the internet is already a tool for thought - we've gone through [[sense making crises]] several times on a historical level - we're going through another and we'll need to get through it - [[planet scale challenges]] - [[climate crisis]] - [[kardashev]] [[type 3 civilizations]] - #push [[protopoi]] - space of [[possible futures]] - outcome is a function of how we learn to [[think together]] - thinking together as a [[whole planet]] - -> [[gordon brander]] is [[building an Agora]]! - #push [[flanbook]] - [[apps]] trap [[thoughts]] in [[saas silos]] - no way to think as a species - #push [[agora protocol]] - [[a protocol for thought]] - some of the [[old dreams]]: - [[xanadu]] - what if we could all contribute to the same space together? - they were heavy lift back then - but we've made some technical progress! - [[noosphere]] ~ [[agora]] - took some time off here to post about this to social networks: [[gordon brander]] is building an [[agora]]! they don't call it that, but that doesn't matter. It looks technically advanced too. - [[memos]] are a really flexible data structure - (super-thoughts? preceded them?) - very generic content: they are essentially [[envelopes]] that can carry anything - [[envelope]] has: - [[header metadata]] - a pointer to some content on [[ipfs]] - a pointer to the previous version on [[ipfs]] - things just don't disappear anymore - [[ucan]] authorizes apps to manage data on your behalf - can allow us to build a [[self sovereign]] security model - you own your keys, you put them in a [[wallet]] - fits [[passwordless sign on]] ~ [[passkeys]] - you [[own your identity]], very important to them - leverages [[did]] and such - [[sphere servers]] are [[superpeers]]. personal [[ipfs gateways]]. - [[gossip network]] ## [[The History and Future of Software as Tools for Thinking]] - (missed the first minute) - [[jerry michalski]] with [[howard rheingold]] - how do communities work? how do we get smarter humans? - pass the floor - (split screen with [[jerry's brain]]) - [[howard rheingold]] - [[palo alto research center]] - went there for [[alan kay]]'s article for [[scientific american]] - [[microelectronics in the personal computer]] - if you weren't in [[xerox parc]] you just didn't have what he showed on screen - then [[time magazine]] making the [[personal computer]] [[person of the year]] - the [[steves]] standing on the shoulders of giants - it didn't come from defense contractors, it didn't come from corporations, it cames from [[individuals]] who used what institutions provided to build tools for thinking - [[engelbart]] - (missed one name here or two, check recording) - [[von neumann]] - [[alan turing]] - [[boole]] - [[lovelace]] - [[babbage]] - led him to create. - [[jerry michalski]] - [[vannevar bush]] [[memex]] - [[howard rheingold]] on [[licklider]] [[1960]] - -> shame I can't read Jerry's brain here, I didn't know this name at first clearly :) - (echo/[[feedback issues]]) - [[article]] - [[man computer symbiosis]] - [[J.C.R. Licklider]] got a position (which one?), had read [[Douglas Engelbart]]. - [[licklider]] funded (sp?) [[engelbart]] - led to [[mother of all demos]] - [[integrated systems of humans]] using [[language]], [[artifacts]], [[methodology]], [[training]] - [[licklider]] has a [[psychologist]] on staff - later involved in [[microdosing]] experiments? - #q [[jerry michalski]] what from the original vision has worked (and maybe we take for granted) and what hasn't (yet)? - materialized: - pointing and clicking - multimedia - shared notebook for people working on projects was part of the original demo - tried going with [[organizations]] where these tools didn't work out, but the vision was as follows - #push [[works]] - [[a work]] - service or product that your enterprise created - [[b work]] - part of the enterprise that works on improving ability to create that product - [[c work]] - #push [[agora]] - improving your ability to improve - vision of [[c work]] done as [[skunkworks]], introducing innovation to [[b work]] sections - vision was an [[integrated toolkit]] - note taking apps, rapid learning apps - we need to integrate these things as a [[toolkit]], integrate [[thinking environments]] - there are [[relationships]] that really need to be made more clear - [[knowledge tools]], [[learning tools]], [[thinking tools]] - there are ways of using visualizations of what we know to think - #q [[howard rheingold]] do you think of the brain as a way to think or a tool? (check?) - Jerry thinks of it as [[photoshop]] for ideas - (Demo bridging several nodes to [[cholera]].) - Putting all nodes side by side in a single tool (interface) is instrumental. - thebrain's flexibility is one of the most attractive factors. - [[howard rheingold]] it externalizes your memory - [[the magic number 7]] - offloading leading going to higher levels of abstraction - thinking visually w.r.t. the network of connections leads to a new framework of thought that would be otherwise difficult to hold in our minds at once - -> Howard wrote books before some of these tools; his office was plastered with papers and notes - Stacks of notes that could be moved around. - Ability to externalize was there; the ability to think with symbolic items. - [[jerry michalski]] - [[expressive capacity]] - different tools have different expressive capacity - when [[cad]] was new, it lacked a lot of the features it has now - when [[shopping for a tool]], it's hard to figure out which features we need a priori - some tools are very workflow opinionated, very rigid - e.g. tools that enforce color coding - #q [[jerry michalski]] you set out to explore these tools and report back; what did you learn from your journeys? - [[howard rheingold]] throughout history, we see that people who use tools find things to do with them - the [[internet]] is a good example: there is a myth that it was created as a bomb proof communication medium. - actually [[packet switching]] was created for that purpose - which was then adopted for the internet - people like [[licklider]] knew of the need to network to exchange information - [[researchers]] started using the network to talk about things like [[science fiction]] - [[bob taylor]]: lesser known but very important character - check out the video with [[john m.]] from [[university of texas]] at austin - researchers supported the emerging community - [[intergalactic network]] - [[1968]] [[computer as a communication device]] - the users were the ones who turned the internet into a communication medium - [[stackexchange]] - the model of an expert who broadcasts knowledge isn't as useful as a group or community of people who are [[learning together]] ~ [[colearning]] - #q [[jerry michalski]] on the problem of assigning truth values (paraphrasing, check) - daughter started using search engines to do homework - had to explain that up until now when teachers assigned a book, there were a number of authorities participating in that assignment (and could potentially act as gatekeepers) - it's up to you to determine if it is [[good]] information, [[bad]] information, [[misinformation]]. - technology is advancing so fast that [[fake info]] risks becoming uncontrollable - solution unknown but might require algorithmic filtering - -> [[open source algorithms]] in the [[commons]] may be the solution IMHO - who do you [[trust]]? can you adopt their lists (adopt their trust)? - [[sift]] if you're trying to check the veracity of that webpage, get off that webpage - search name of the author for example - -> metadata overlay for the web? provided by [[hypothes.is]], [[noosphere]], [[agora]] - [[jerry michalski]] - #push [[fellowship of the link]] - remembers asking questions on (forum name missing) - a maybe nicer/simpler time, but points at potential - #q On [[misinformation]]/disinformation. Politically: what's your view on the human mind itself, thinking of it as self-reinforcing loops? if you have a personal belief and you may or may not reinforce it. - [[confirmation bias]]: more attuned to evidence that supports what we already believe - the role of emotion and [[attachment]] - don't know the answer to how to solve these tensions - how to pull in the right people into the right discussions/contexts - human prejudices which keep us from learning things that we have not been yet trained to learn - doesn't mean we won't discover ways to work around that - we have to think of the strong connections between artifacts, language, metodology, training as they enable us to understand the psychology of the individual and the group - [[experts on the well]] (sp?) is still around - #push [[agora]] - [[social capital]], [[knowledge capital]], [[community]] are all key - [[jerry michalski]] - case: [[blair]] (sp?) scribbling all posts in the [[well]] before suicide :( - [[tribute]] - #q is there a place for [[authority figures]] without going back to [[gatekeeping]] - [[howard rheingold]] [[authority figure]] can be a loaded term - [[authority of the text]]: how much you can trust the text, and the person - teaching experience: [[social media]] - there's a place for [[authority]] and for [[questioning authority]] - questioning is even more important now that we have fewer [[gatekeepers]] - [[jerry michalski]] [[the great transformation]] - "don't ever read this book" - critique of [[polanyi]] - how do we steer away from radicalization as it's endorsed/enabled by corporate platforms? - #q (missed the gist of question about tools for thought, check) - [[howard rheingold]] standard psychological tests with people and substituted a computer or cartoon rendition of a person or a computer voice: people attribute human qualities to things that computers do - we have not evolved to make a distinction between synthetic and organic voices - understanding our limitations can lead to working around them - one problem with teaching critical thinking: - if you teach questioning authority, they will question: - teachers - family - schools - governments - ...and they tend not to like that :) - when do you teach it? is elementary school too early? - #q [[michael]] thank you for your book. Two pieces to the description earlier of analog thinking extension: (...). How do those map, or not, to digital tools? - experiments with new interfaces - move blocks around and change the computer landscape - book: [[the extended mind]] - there's a lot of research that shows that teachers who use gestures are more effective teachers - our bodies and how we manipulate forms in space communicate a way of thinking - [[jerry michalski]] sometimes a computer can slow you down and ask: how are you feeling right now? there's many processes (e.g. somatic) ongoing; slowing down and becoming mindful can help you become aware of them. - physiological responses to new information. - can we find that moment and call it out? offer a chance to slow down then, going deeper? - [[jerry michalski]] there are people who are aware of their heartbeat and people who aren't - stock brokers: people who are aware of their heartbeat make better financial decisions (I think; the stream cut out for 10s) - #q what's the more psychoactive experience you've had with a computer? - [[howard rheingold]] talked way into [[xerox parc]], got access to an [[alto]] computer with a [[5mb]] hard disk - being able to move a paragraph around without retyping a page (!) - "it was [[blissful]]" :D - "it was not just a way to manipulate information, I could think better with it" - computer programming does this with abstraction - what people did early online, late 1980s, people took psychedelics and chatted online - [[lerl]] (sp?) - took [[lsd]] again at some point, put on [[google earth]] and had a realization that what [[google]] was doing was building an [[ai]] - #q what do you think about [[tools for thought]] for modeling, simulations - (had to context switch but this sounded interesting) - [[betterverse]] ## [[Q&A]] - Have to drop out for the day by now to prep dinner and start winding down for the night :) ## [[Tools for Thinking Product Demos]] - TBD. ## [[Leveraging AI and ML in Building New Tools for Thinking]] - TBD. ## [[Idea Dimensionality and Representing Semantic Meaning]] - TBD.