The future of knowledge navigation

Will we ever reach the point in our human development where our relationship with our technologies becomes so natural that they become a part of us? Will we ever be able to claim that they are a problem free extension of our physical capabilities - seamlessly connected to our minds? Many would argue that we have already achieved this. Perhaps though, this would have been an easier question to answer in the last century than it is today. The answer then would have been 'yes - we have already achieved it'. The widespread use of diverse technologies such as transportation vehicles, manufacturing tools, weapons and even writing implements, have shown that we can create technology to extend our abilities beyond our natural physical skills, and also adapt our bodies and minds to incorporate tools. This an effect epitomised in Marshall McLuhan's famous declaration that 'we shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us'. Although this has social and cultural connotations, it also reveals that we are naturally pliable, and can adapt our skills and expectations toward new ways of doing things. In this case, we learn to use our tools to extend and enhance our limited physical capabilities.

The problem is, as our tools become increasingly complex, so there is a need to learn more complex skills to be able to optimise our use of them. The computer is a classic example of complex technology that can be difficult to use. Things have dramatically improved since the introduction of Graphic User Interfaces, and Siri and Kinect have done a little to bring us closer to improved voice and gesture control. However, computers have also exponentially increased in power and utility, and we will always need to run to keep up. We can speculate that most of us fail to harness the full potential of computers because we simply don't have the skills to exploit their full potential.

Many skills and literacies required, to be able to maximise our use of computers so that they can navigate knowledge on our behalf. The fact that we now carry very powerful computers around with us in our pockets does little to change the problem - we are sentient, autonomous and emotional, whereas computers are simply cold, unthinking machines that blindly follow the instructions they are given. This differential is stark and unforgiving. We still need to be able to develop skills and competencies in the use of technology before we can reap its benefits. This takes time and effort, and no small amount of stress when things don't work out as we had anticipated.

Stephen Wolfram's recent announcement may change all that. The Wolfram Alpha natural language he has announced seems to be a solution to many complex human/computer interface problems. According to Wolfram, symbolic programming is the future of systems design. He says:

"There are plenty of existing general-purpose computer languages. But their vision is very different—and in a sense much more modest—than the Wolfram Language. They concentrate on managing the structure of programs, keeping the language itself small in scope, and relying on a web of external libraries for additional functionality. In the Wolfram Language my concept from the very beginning has been to create a single tightly integrated system in which as much as possible is included right in the language itself."

Wolfram also talks about the fluidity of the new language, suggesting that coding and data can become interchangeable:

"In most languages there’s a sharp distinction between programs, and data, and the output of programs. Not so in the Wolfram Language. It’s all completely fluid. Data becomes algorithmic. Algorithms become data. There’s no distinction needed between code and data. And everything becomes both intrinsically scriptable, and intrinsically interactive. And there’s both a new level of interoperability, and a new level of modularity."

Time will tell how much the Wolfram language will actually achieve to ameliorate the problems we face when we try to use technology and complex interfaces to solve human problems. Yet one thing is clear, and that is that the new language will present new ways to navigate knowledge, and may indeed represent a clear advance forward in how we manage data, and how it can be incorporated into our every day lives. Anyone who has used Wolfram Alpha as an answer engine would probably agree. I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing what the Wolfram language will be able to do for our use of computers in the future.

Image by Frankdzines


The future of knowledge navigation by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth England, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.