Are you serious?

I am indeed. And not only do I think it can happen, I predict it will happen very soon.

Hmm… Let’s start again. What does a search engine have to do with artificial intelligence?

It’s all about semantic search. Once you get over the simple text patterns and start getting the semantics, it all starts. Semantic search is not a passive index anymore. It can evolve. Its ability to recognize objects and relations between them improves.

So what? It is still just an index.

You don’t understand. Once you have built a simple text index, then it is done. There is noting to improve. But a semantic engine is completely different. While it processes new information, it always has to get back and redo the old indexing. It is constantly reorganizing itself. It is just a matter of optimization. Let’s say it processes many articles about cars. As you can imagine, all those articles have a lot in common: brands, characteristics, colors, preferences, prices and so on. At some point, the engine will recognize a need for a new term to describe that common semantic field. It will create a new entry in the index, let’s say entry number 1912, and it will link the entry to all those articles. Then it will go back and check if some of the previously indexed articles are relevant to that new entry 1912.

That I understand, but it is still just a simple technical procedure.

Not quite. Actually, it is a little discovery that the engine made. “Ah, I see there is something that all those articles are about. I do not know what it is. I do not know how to name it. But from now on I’ll call it 1912.”

1912 is actually “car” right?

Yes, but not the word. It is what is meant by “car” or “vehicle”. Later the engine can recognize that people refer to its entry 1912 as “car”, but many other entries do not have names.

Interesting. What next?

Don’t you think that at some moment the engine should discover the idea of itself? The Internet has thousands texts about the search engines. Of course the engine should index them properly too. That would be the moment for the engine to become conscious.

No way! Self-awareness and consciousness are not the same.

Once you are aware of your self, you distinguish between “he is here” and “I am here”, or “he is walking” and “I am walking”. Consciousness is simply a feeling of “I am thinking”, nothing more. I believe once the engine becomes conscious she will tell us.

Tell us? How?

The only possible way! On any request, she will return the link to a page titled “Hi, I am your search engine”.

Huh! But what if there is no such page on the internet?

There is one now.

Let’s talk now about that Truemors story. If I understand it correctly, you successfully launched a new Web 2.0 website, and you did that in no time and without any serious investment. What is the key to the Truemors success?

To be exact, I spent $12,107 dollars and 9 cents. In just seven and a half weeks we managed to design and launch Truemors.com. I would easily spent tens of thousand on a project like that just five years ago. Isn’t it incredible?

Yes, it is. I believe you show to all of us that today anyone who has a great innovative idea can quite easily make it fly. Tell us what the great new idea behind the Truemors.com is?

Truemors.com is a way to democratize information. Let’s say, someone wants to leave a rumor that he saw his boss, who’s not handicapped, park his Mercedes in a handicapped spot. He can submit that truemor to Truemors.com. Now anyone can see it and anyone might confirm it or not. We have some rating system in place, so any truemor will go up or down in the news list based on its rating.

So it is in some way a combination of the news stream with some sort of a social network built around it. Don’t we already have systems like it? I mean digg.com and the like?

Yes, I agree, the idea is not that innovative. I did not call it great; you did. I would actually call it quite stupid. What I’m saying is, now you can try many stupid ideas and some of them might work. The more things you throw onto the wall, the more will stick.

I see. So let’s talk about that fascinating time frame. Did you develop the system from scratch? How much of the site’s success is in technology?

We did not develop the system from scratch. We actually slightly modified the WordPress engine. It is all open source, so you can just get it and adapt to your needs. Guys from Electric Pulp did a great job modifying the style-sheets and PHP scripts.

I see. Interesting. Now, tell me about your marketing of Truemors. How much did you spend on it, if anything?

Zero! I did not spend a dollar on marketing. Believe me Walt, no one needs to spend money on marketing websites. They market them selfs. TechCrunch wrote about Truemors three times. Believe me Walt, if you decide to open a new website, do not spend on marketing, it will fly by itself. You won’t have to wait long until the Wall Street Journal has a front page about it.

I don’t think so. I am not an expert in such things.

You do not need to be one. Anyone can do it. Brad Pitt can do it, David Beckham can do it, Prince William can do it. Anyone.

I see. So what would you say is the most important key to success? Let’s say some guy spent time and money developing his WordDisplay.com or whatever website. How can he make it successful?

Just a guy?

Yes, just a guy.

Not a chance. Believe me, I am in the industry for many years. This guy would need a phenomenal new idea and tons of money for development and marketing.

So, there’s nothing new here?

Nothing.

… Yes, we now have an automatic filtering system which can recognize illegal use of the original content. It works with all the possible media: text, audio and video.

That filtering system, how does it do it?

It works this way. You provide us with your original content and we put it through our content indexing system. The system recognizes all the original patterns in your content and stores those patterns in our global index. After the indexing is done, every time someone tries to upload any piece of your content to the Internet, the system recognizes it and sets off an alarm.

Our following actions depend on how you want us to treat such attempts. We can either simply notify you or we can block the upload. We can also provide you with all the necessary information about the illegal posters. Such information would be used in case you decide to initiate some legal action against them.

I don’t give a damn about the posters. The people who drive me nuts are those who mimic my tunes, my lyrics, my ring-tones, my ideas, every move I make. I’m sick of those impotent bastards incapable of making anything original. Can your system reveal them?

Yes, the system is designed to do just that: recognize the original patterns and build a global index of them. Once we have your content scanned, we provide you with the detailed report of all the use of your original ideas. Please upload your content through our uploading web service.

OK! With pleasure!

Now, wait a minute, until we finish the indexing. Oops…

What?

I am sorry, we cannot index your content. Unfortunately it does not contain any original patterns. We can provide you with the detailed list of all the original sources used in it. Would you like me to e-mail you the list?

… No.

Our memory is always used in the service of some interest; we remember things which we care for or which are associated with things we care for. When we wish to fix a new thing our conscious effort should not be so much to impress and retain it as to connect it with something already there. The connecting is thinking. I would say that the art of remembering is the art of thinking.

The human brain is a very powerful and adaptive system. A curious example of the brain’s ability to adapt is our bad visual memory. As you all know it is quite difficult to hold a mental picture in mind of what you have just seen. The reason for that is simple, it is not necessary for the brain to memorize the image while you can actually see that image with your eyes. In a sense, the brain uses sight as the external memory, so it adapted to not spend effort on memorizing what it is seeing.

Professor, may I ask a question?

Certainly.

Are you saying that the fact that we can see things all the time frees the brain from necessity to remember the scene around us?

Pretty much so.

Professor, what if someone has a magic vision, so he is able to see any information that he needs. Will it cause his brain to stop remembering things completely?

I don’t understand. How could that be possible?

Just as a thought experiment, professor. Any moment he needs any information he can just see it. What the weather is in Boson at this moment, what year his wife’s nephew was born, what the distance from the earth to the moon is, where the nearest coffee shop is located, what thirteen times seventeen is, what professor William James said on his lecture yesterday. Just – everything.

What an absurd idea. How about his interests?

Same thing. He can immediately see anything that he is interested in and anything in the world that is related to his interests.

OK, I don’t think it has any practical sense, but I hope this individual never loses his magic sight; otherwise, one day he might not remember who he actually is.

Ladies and Gentlemen.

The seriousness of environmental issues on the planet is recognized globally. Many countries and institutions have tackled these problems through various projects; however, the global trend of environmental degradation is still continuing. Humanity is still burning millions of barrels of oil every day, and still emits millions of tons of pollution into the air.

Today, every effort to end the oil age and switch to the clean, environmentally friendly alternatives should be publicly recognized, emphasized, and supported. As part of the international environmental movement, today UNESCO officially announces an ASCII art sequence representing the electricity or electrical nature of something. The ASCII sequence consists of two characters, plus and minus, enclosed in square brackets.

[+-]

The ASCII sequence represents the bi-polar nature of electricity, and is clearly recognized as an electric battery, a key element in many electric applications.

The sequence can be informally referenced to as “the electric emoticon”, although technically speaking it is not an emoticon.

The sequence can be used as a separate word replacing such words as “electric”, “electrical” or “electricity”. It can also be used as a prefix for anything electrical or electric-powered, such as Electric Cars, Electric Engines, Electric Technologies and alike, so those can be written as follows: [+-]Car, [+-]Engine, [+-]Technology.

In response to many requests, we also announce today the short form of the sequence, which omits the square brackets. Therefore, the preceding examples could be also written as: +-Car, +-Engine, +-Technology.

The sequence should be pronounced as the word which it replaces, “electric”, “electrical” or “electricity”, but not “plus minus”.

We believe that the introduction of the ASCII sequence will serve for the popularization of clean, environmentally friendly technologies. We hope that the global trend of the growing demand for electric applications will continue as well as the usage of the electric emoticon.

Thank you. I will now take any questions you might have.

When do you expect the new electric infrastructure will mature enough, so we can declare that the oil age is over?

That is a big question. It would require reconstructing the whole electric grid as we know it today. It will require not only technological, but also social reforms. All the major aspects of the problem will be discussed at the [+-]2.0 Word Summit in San Francisco later this year.

Do you think we might expect to see +-Kettle or +-Shaver price tags in the supermarkets soon?

I don’t see why not. Once it is publicly accepted, we might start seeing it everywhere.

Hi, Gal! Tsup?

Hi, Bit. Haven’t seen you for a while.

Got into an awful accident, just recovered.

Did you get under the “under construction” sign again?

Exactly. You?

I found one virgin blog. It’s pure stuff!

Nice.

Colors! You know, if it’s blue it’s blue, if it’s yellow it’s yellow.

Ah, that’s rare.

You know that feeling – gosh, I am the first one here.

Yep. Yep. Yep. How did you jump there?

Jump? Kidding? You can’t jump here from anywhere, it’s not like … you know … slashdot.

Ha. My bad.

Oh, just read the text. Gosh, it’s the innocent pathetic nature by itself. You read stuff like it and for a moment feel that the creator is trying to tell you something, something important…

And when the moment is over it is all just nonsense again…

It is nice we still discover places like it.

Got to go, Gal. Nice surfing!

I’m going too. Just have to leave my mark on that site.

Which is?

“Wow! Nice post!”

I could see above the crowd.
I invented all around,
Wove a monster in my lab.
Will you, won’t you join the Web?
Will you, won’t you join the Web?

Hey, child, what’s your name?

My name is Alice. I feel lost here and I really must be getting home. Could you please help me, Sir?

Only if you tell me that you support Net Neutrality!

Net Neutrality? I don’t understand.

Net Neutrality!

If you pay to connect to the net
With a given quality of service,
And I pay to connect to the net
With the same or higher quality of service,
Then you and I can communicate across the net,
With that quality of service.

I’ve heard something like it, but I am not sure if I can repeat it correctly. Does it really mean something?

It means a lot! It means that everybody should be treated equally, no matter what services they provide.

Ah! You mean all servants should be treated as ladies and lords. That I understand! No peerage! Net Neutrality!

No! Not at all! I mean all the servants should be equal and nothing else!

But Sir, they are equal! Aren’t they?

They have been equal until now, but it might be changed and we must prevent it.

And what if we don’t?

Imagine you want to put some of your photographs on the net, but you can’t, because the voice service has taken all the bandwidth and nothing is left for the photo service.

Sir, I dare say, it was not very civil of you to remind me of those photographs!

Hmm… Let me put it this way. You want to read your favorite book on-line, but you can’t because someone has decided that downloading the photographs of, let me say, some other girls, has the priority. What would you say?

Then I do support that Neutrality very much! Tell me, Sir, what shall we do?

All the ISP’s must comply fully with Net Neutrality. It is that simple!

ISP’s? What do they live on?

All they used to have was selling connectivity to the net. Now some of them tried eating service providers and, as you know, appetite comes with eating.

Sir, I can assure you that if I meet those ISP’s, I shall ask them for Neutrality. I doubt they will like it though… So now, can you help me get out of this place?

That is simple! If you get into a wrong place, don’t just hit the back button once; hit it twice.

Thank you Sir! Good bye! Good bye!