Summary
I was asked by someone who couldn't attend the BOT2001 seminar to explain what I was going to talk about. When I told them that it was about getting people to communicate their knowledge to each other, he was most unimpressed. He wrote:
"I must admit that I misunderstood the scope of your presentation at Bot2001. I thought you had ideas about a way to build an object database "bottom up" allowing for such a system to grow more intelligent as it is used (the intelligence process only partly assisted by human efforts). This is what we are thinking about just know.
We want to make a tool that can perform a valuable market research function. In fact, a tool that can identify any information area. We do not think of this as a one time search. I have in mind a database / intelligent system which will constantly provide relevant data within different areas.
As plausible as this might sound, there would be just as much chance of designing a perpetual motion machine.
Probably, the best summary is provided by Vic Harper, the same reader of the chapters of my book, who described the initial problem. He wrote, after reading the chapters describing the living database:
I have just learned of a solution that provides .....
a choice of many useful meeting places to meet others that are the 'right' ones for whatever my reason/need
a way to organize the location (addressability) of these places
a nice easy way to create a new space if the need arises (Bottom up and object oriented, sweet)
a way to facilitate me when I'm in that neat little space
a way to put a virtual me into that virtual space
a way to have my clone in many places at once
a way to sort out what is actually useful to me without a lot of energy
a way to save time
End of article