Guy Reams (00:01.294)
This is day 299, as we may think.
These last several weeks, my thoughts have been directed toward the incredible advancement that the human race is currently experiencing. People are talking about the advancements in large language models and making broad and sweeping claims about artificial intelligence. These claims can be preposterous, humorous, and sometimes just downright inflammatory. The amount of disinformation about the state of modern computing is really staggering.
probably due in large part to the desire by many of these companies to inflate valuation based on the outlandish potential of certain technology. There's one area, however, which I think is highly pertinent. It is the idea that these advancements, specifically the capability to rapidly summarize and present a sort of collective consciousness drawn from large repositories of human thought, that will have an impact on our society.
I don't think we fully grasp the magnitude or reach of this impact yet. When peasants could actually start reading the Bible for themselves in the late 1400s, the rapid liberalization of our society was unstoppable. Freedoms, rights, creativity, and enterprise all blossomed so rapidly that it was not possible for aging bureaucratic systems to maintain their power. Of course, that also brought upon us great challenges.
some of which we are still grappling with today. Now we've entered a new era where knowledge is nearly ubiquitous, at least for those of us who have an internet connection and a $20 a month subscription. This has led me to dust off some of my old computer science lectures from when I was younger. I distantly remembered one of the first papers published on the idea of a future device that could augment human thought. So I looked it up and reread the paper.
Guy Reams (01:57.08)
What I read floored me. Just a few years ago, this paper would have been perceived as largely fanciful, but today, it reads almost like a blueprint. This article is by Vannevar Bush, published in the July 1945 issue of The Atlantic. I gave the link in my blog if you want to look it up. The article is titled As We May Think. It highlights an associated press image of a telegraph machine of all things.
Here's the first statement from the article, which made me pause and consider just how visionary this was back in 1945. The statement reads, consider a future device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceedingly speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his own memory.
Dr. Bush was one of the many scientists drawn into the all-consuming World War. He lamented how science had been used for both good and ill to create instruments of war. What he proposed in essence was that we might turn from using science and technology to expand human power towards using it to expand the human mind instead. Considering the unprecedented scale of human life loss during the war, this was his attempt
to his colleagues to refocus their pursuits on improving life rather than enabling destruction. Bush's essay is one of the most informative essays ever written in the realm of computer science. You could argue it profoundly influenced the fields of information science, cognitive augmentation, and computing in general, ultimately laying the groundwork for concepts that we now associate with things like hypertext, the internet,
and personal management systems. In his essay, Bush envisioned what he called the Memex as a personal mechanical device that would store and retrieve vast amounts of information, similar to an external extension of human memory and thought process. The word Memex itself is a combination of the word memory and index. Dr. Bush imagined a mechanized workstation resembling a desk with multiple screens, levers, and buttons.
Guy Reams (04:19.148)
and microfilm reels and other mechanical parts. Although he described a mechanical system using microfilm, the conceptual power of MemEx inspired people to consider how such a device could actually become a reality. Do you remember the film Minority Report starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg? In the film, Cruise's character uses gesture technology to interface with the advanced intelligent computing system.
This film had the same sort of impact as Dr. Bush's Memex. It allowed people to envision how such marvels could actually become reality. It opened our eyes to the possibility of creating machines that act as extensions of our minds. Although Dr. Bush only devoted a few paragraphs to his Memex idea, he articulated four powerful ways computing could interface with and aid the human mind. All these ideas are so pertinent today that you might think,
that Dr. Bush had transported himself to 2025 and watched one of us working with a modern computer, browsing the internet, engaging on social media, using a file sharing service, and interacting with an LLM. Briefly, his MIMIX idea would feature a vast information storage capability, allowing a person to store all of their documents, books, records, and images.
it would include an entire encyclopedia's worth of knowledge as reference. He felt this Memex should operate in the way that a human brain naturally thinks, through associative links rather than strict hierarchical or alphabetical indexing. He proposed the revolutionary concept of associative trails, much like what we now call links on the internet. Even more incredibly, the Memex would allow users to create their own trails through information.
building personally meaningful associations between ideas, documents, and images. These trails could be saved, shared, and retrieved later, thus enhancing personal knowledge and creativity. He envisioned rapid access to any stored information, minimizing retrieval time and aligning with natural speed of human thought process. Later, he foresaw users sharing their trails with others, fostering a collaborative exchange of knowledge.
Guy Reams (06:42.52)
In my computer science lectures, we explored how Bush's ideas remarkably influenced later innovations. Douglas Engelbart's concepts including the mouse and hypertext, Ted Nelson's work and Tim Berners-Lee's creation of the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee directly attributed inspiration to Bush's 1945 article. As I sit here now looking through my own computer, I realize how this Memex concept has genuinely come to life.
I have a personal knowledge graph using tools like Obsidian. I engage in collaborative document and knowledge sharing through products like Notion and GitHub. I use Ask Touring to augment knowledge retrieval for my personal data collections. I extend my research capabilities using ChatGBT, Claude, and Perplexity. Though I don't often use visual interfaces like VR headsets, the technology is available to me.
Multiple monitors, as envisioned by Dr. Bush, are standard in my workspace. Each of these systems attempts in some way to replicate, expand, and fulfill the original MemEx vision of augmenting human memory, creativity, and productivity through technology.
I'm truly blown away that Vannevar's Bush's Memex concept from 1945 fundamentally anticipated modern computing paradigms, information architecture, and cognitive augmentation strategy. This has inspired me to explore further how I might expand upon these core ideas. How can modern technology continue to enhance human associative thinking, rapid retrieval, and shared knowledge?
find it exciting that here we are nearly 80 years later, finally able to make Memex one of the most influential visions of the future an actual reality.