A natural-language system that can automatically extract the substance of incoming e-mail and build a representation of the knowledge contained in the texts … might keep track of opinions and discussions within electronic communities – allowing people to find and connect with like-minded individuals around the world. They might also help mediate between viewpoints and move debates toward consensus … In the end much of human culture will be accessible online, resulting in … a new “electronic Zeitgeist.”
Predictor: Mallery, John
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, Evan Schwartz writes about ways networked communciations may change the way people get information, quoting John Mallery of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Schwartz writes: ”Mallery’s team at the AI Lab has ambitious plans … One effort, says Mallery, is to create a natural-language system that can automatically extract the substance of incoming e-mail and build a representation of the knowledge contained in the texts. These systems might keep track of opinions and discussions within electronic communities – allowing people to find and connect with like-minded individuals around the world. They might also help mediate between viewpoints and move debates toward consensus. A knowledge representation for debates about universal health coverage might include the overall goal and branches leading down that summarize ideas about how to achieve the goal. In the end, says Mallery, much of human culture will be accessible online, resulting in what he calls a new ‘electronic Zeitgeist.’ But AI researchers have been working on this kind of knowledge representation problem for nearly 40 years. And there is certainly no guarantee that it will be solved any time soon.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: Democracy
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Power to the People: The Clinton Administration is Using the Net in a Pitched Effort to Perform an End Run Around the Media
Quote Type: Paraphrase
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.12/whitehouse_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney