Helping Machines Think Different What's the future of Personal Digital Assistants? This article covers some developing projects at DARPA and the like with some seemingly disparate (the article encourages us to see them as related) aims. One of these aims is to create a PDA that will, essentially, log our lives--recording every detail of our activities. The second project will be to create software to "think" about these details and use them to create better digital servants; i.e., the ultimate Jeeves who anticipates our desires and can brew the perfect cup of tea (oh, please, let's emphasize the importance of the perfect cup of tea!)

Of course, there's a potential here for an Orwellian nightmare, and I'm sure Foucault would see pan-optical applications to this technology. On a deeper philosophical side, one wonders what it says about our conceptions of human nature--can we create robots that can predict our behavior and be one-step ahead of us? Also, how ethical would it be to create "thinkers," then enslave them? I guess these people haven't seen Blade Runner.

I subscribe to Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, but I've also read about three years worth of Asimov's and Analog. The future of PDAs is well discussed in these articles. Usually we find them in the form of implants that interface directly to the brain. Often they "enhance" humans by giving them better memories (or at least a better way of organizing and recalling information).

My fear has always been that such technology will be abused by marketers--just look at the way they've littered the internet with their shameless propaganda. I would rather blow my brains out than have to endure Nike ads blasted across my neural network every five minutes.