Has the Knowledge Navigator Come True with Siri or Her?

Way Way Way back in the late 80s, Apple had a vision for computing called the Knowledge Navigator.  This dream had a certain 2001 Space Odyssey HAL aspect to it because you, the user could hold a discussion with your computer as it helped you solve your problems.

I was watching an old 12-minute Apple video called the Knowledge Navigator (1987) where a professor is working with his DynaBook to plan his day. (The DynaBook is a laptop conceived by Alan Kay in 1968.) Wouldn't it be wonderful to have this type of interaction with your computer?




Did you notice that the professor said that the article he needed was 5 years old?  When his DynaBook found it, it turned out that that article was written in 2006.  Add 5 years to that and you get 2011. That's not very far away from today. Are we actually living that today?

I have been exploring the many faces of Siri on my iPhone. I have been amazed about how I can ask Siri to set an alarm, search for a recipe, add an expense to a specific note, make a call to my wife, but I was BLOWN AWAY by some of the options I found when researching this post.  Here are some of the requests you can ask of Siri: (Found these at Imgur.com)

• Show me the roster for the Giants
• Did the University of Northern Iowa win last night?
• What does the rest of my day look like?
• Where is my next meeting?
• Move my 3:00 meeting to 4:30
• Tell my wife I'll be right there.
• Open Facebook

The one that really knocked me on my ear was when I said "Phone my wife, Kathy Klink-Zeitz." Before Siri made the call, she said "So Kathy Klink-Zeitz is your wife?  I will make a note of that." Ever since, I don't need to mention Kathy's name.  Just need to say "Phone my wife."

This is VERY close to what we saw the professor doing in his office in the video above.

I just saw the movie, "Her", where a whole operating system is blessed with artificial intelligence and a specific human (Theodore) falls in love with his computer because she (Samantha) is listening to everything he is saying and responding.  Is this our destined future?  How will education be affected by such a system?

Imagine an interactive system that would listen to the voice of learners and provide learning opportunities (notice that I didn't say "Instructional Programs" because it can be SOOOO much more) that will fit our learners' needs.  This doesn't mean that these systems would give the answers.  It just means that it could provide additional challenges and scaffolding as necessary.

What do you think?  Where is this all going?  

Have we achieved the Knowledge Navigator level or is there far to go from here?

Z

Talk with My Cyber Twin

Looking for a way to be in multiple places at the same time? Want to provide 24/7 feedback to your students and friends?

Well, let me introduce you to MyCyberTwin. This is an online Chatterbot. You ask it questions and it will respond in ways that develop into conversations.

You may have seen a similar Artificially Intelligent conversational agent, Eliza. Eliza was an AI program that came with the Apple II+ computer back in 1980.  It was so good at responding to your questions that some people were fooled into thinking that Eliza was a real person. This is called the Eliza-Effect.

The beauty of MyCyberTwin is that you can teach it what to say. There are over 70 personality questions that you can answer to give your CyberTwin a personality. There are 18 lessons with as many as 36 items where CyberTwin provides you with a potential question/statement that might be provided by a user and you can provide possible answers. You can even provide your own questions and answers.

The best part is that your CyberTwin keeps track of every conversation and even emails each of them to you so that you can keep track of who your cybertwin's discussions. This also allows you to refine your answers as discussions are held.

In short, MyCyberTwin allows you to create your own clone or create a completely different personality - depending upon the persona you want to present.

POSSIBLE APPLICATION: Could you imagine having students create online personalities using MyCyberTwin? They research the personality, perspective and opinions of Thomas Jefferson or Harriet Tubman or Julius Caesar to define the answers that a specific individual would provide.

Think of the discussion and debate that would engage students for hours as they try to get it "just right." THAT is technology-facilitated learning!!

Well, try it out. Tell me what  you think.  I haven't answered all of the questions for my MyCyberTwin, but if you ask interesting questions I will work to refine it.

Please leave comment about how you might use this app.

Z