On Questions and Answers, Answers and Questions and the Role of Search Engines, Transformation and Social Networks
Some musings on questions, answers and search engines. My passionate blog readers know that my core focus in my blog is on the intersection between technology and the mind. The theme below is haunting me for a while now.
With the rise of mobile devices and their search engines, the search for (standard) answers will be shortened and less important. Additionally, the increasing importance and impact of virtual agents (Web 3.0, semantic web) as well as Augmented Reality applications will raise the bar even more for hard answers. At least, for some matters. Why ? Communication has four different levels : weather, facts and figures, emotions and intimacy. I suspect in the future the most interesting (and hard) questions and answers will migrate slowly towards emotions and intimacy. And this is where the importance of Transformation (Joseph Pine II) and social networks comes to the fore. The weather and facts are non-personal, emotions and intimacy by default aren't. Furthermore, every answer gives rise to new questions, more deep questions that is. Combine this insight with the rising importance of multi-disciplinary studies, disciplines and professionals and we see the rise of more integrated questions and answers with much more depth. We can already witness this in the increasing saliency of scientific papers encompassing different disciplines.
In short, technology is changing the nature of questions we will ask ourselves and the world around us. We will ask more personal questions using technology than ever before. More deep factual, scientific questions, more emotional questions as well as more questions on intimacy. Perhaps Ray Kurzweil was right: we might end up being spiritual machines after all ;-)
How do you see this unfold ?
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