The Speculist

What's next for personal communication?

Well, it kinda seems like we already have everything. Weblogs, webcams, IM, VOIP. The only things left are either 3D telepresence or direct brain-to-brain interfaces. Or can you think of something else?

What's next for personal communication?

Understanding, maybe?

Widespread access to a better megaphone doesn't actually equate to better communication (he points out the obvious). That's not an argument for restriction of access, but a strategic opportunity for someone (more likely lot's of someones) to create and market device's or techniques that enhance transmission of clarity of intent.

I think one of the more profound unintended consequences of mass access to personal communication tech will be the mass debate over social ethics (or public behavior, if you prefer). The more people able to express themselves, the greater the need for a mechanism to avoid mis-understanding. Emoticons are a cutsey effort to achieve this, but obviously much room remains for improvement.

[Why no paragraph breaks in the preview? Very confusing.]

Understanding personal communication - Web 2.0 has already separated the content from the rendering agent (browser) - so taken another step farther, the 'rendering agent' for the presentation of ideas needs equally valid markup. I doubt meat-based brains have the capacity to simultaneously have a thought and accurately describe the structural context of that same thought. So my personal translation agent will learn my language/sentence structure/contextual use of words/ideation and express this using a bias-neutral markup. I am free to continue in my natural language with the full expectation that your rendering agent will translate the markup representing my idea into your natural language. Maybe Artificial Intelligence is a bad moniker, perhaps AI should refer to Assistive Intelligence when it pertains to the abstraction of interface between two parties.

btw Michael, "the only things left"? I certainly hope not :)

MikeD:

I think "degree of bias" would have to be a selectable function as that is often as not a part of the message being transmitted. Making that distinction detectable to the recipient by some universally understood metric would be a positive step, I agree, and refers back to my earlier emoticons example. Being able to reliably separate the factual content from the sender's intent is a critical factor to achieving understanding of a message. It's not at all clear how to do this absent the visual and other signals we consciously and otherwise send in F2F communication.

I like your "Assistive Intelligence" distinction, I think it better comports with the direction AI development seems to be persueing.

IMHO, written language is highly evolved for non-F2F communication. Instead, I find that most of the problems with communication (including F2F) come about through at least three causes: first, that one or more of the parties isn't sincere; second, that the parties involved have incompatible beliefs, self-interests, or semantics; or third, that one or more parties isn't communicating competently.

The limitations of the medium actually aren't that significant. People can communicate meaningfully with Morse code which is even more restricted.

I think markets provide a significant improvement in communication. Namely, you put your money where your mouth is. This weeds out both incompetent and deceptive communication since either will lose money long term. It still doesn't adequately cover the matter of incompatible belief systems since those often come from matter that can't be properly measured and traded in a market. More importantly, if an event doesn't effect the value of something in the market, then it is invisible to the market.

Lots of great thoughts here. I would point out that the power and freedom of the press being moved into the hands of individuals is as much about mass communication as it is personal. With blogs and podcasts and self-publishing, mass communication has become a form a personal communication.

Phil - with personal topics of interest becoming increasingly specialized, the only way to find anyone to discuss them is to broadcast and wait. That may explain my recent addiction to this site... the latency for new ideas is low :)

One argument against bloggers that the MSM has made (and probably will continue to make) is that now that everyone has access, there are no gatekeepers. We have a race to the bottom where the loudest and shrillest voices prevail.

This, of course, shows a profound lack of understanding of how linking within the blogosphere works to bring eyes to good writing/opinion.

Sometimes we bloggers link to stuff we think is stupid, but then only to explain why it's stupid. Usually, we link to writing we think is good. The better something is, the more links it gets. It's not that there are no gatekeepers, its just that the role of gatekeeper has been dispersed throughout the Internet. Dispersed, but with concentrations of this power in the hands of highly trusted bloggers like The Instapundit.

That trust isn't guaranteed to be permanent. The MSM had a virtual monopoly on ideas for 40 years, but Glenn - even if he has the stamina to keep blogging hard for 40 more years - doesn't have a monopoly.

If Glenn were to join the KKK his hits might go up temporarily - readers trying to figure out what the heck happened to Glenn - but his trust would plummet and other gatekeepers would quickly take his place.