Human memory is very poor. We forget things over time; we fail to remember them in the first place because we’re also not good at focusing; and we remember things incorrectly due to our inherent biases and the way we perceive the world. There’s a lot going on, but we won’t be keeping much of it for long.
Maybe artificial intelligence can solve this problem. It looks like we’ll find out soon. Microsoft, for example, is betting big on Recall, an app that promises to use artificial intelligence to collect, store, organize and re-present everything you do and see on your computer. (Imagine just asking your computer, “What was that article about bees I read the other day? What timeline did it mention?”) At this year’s Google I/O, the most mind-blowing Impressive artificial intelligence demo is a way to remember where you left your glasses. Apple thinks you can use artificial intelligence to create photo albums and even emotional videos to remember beautiful moments. Companies like Notion and Dropbox are building artificial intelligence into their tools to help you find and remember all your meetings and tasks. They all promise the same thing: Don’t worry about remembering things because the computer will do it for you. And it will do it faster and better.
As far as this episode is concerned edge broadcast, we spoke with one of the people who has been working on this issue for a long time: Limitless CEO Dan Siroker. We discuss how to build a great memory aid, how we can use them in the future, and why it’s so hard to get right.
We also discussed the human side – what would happen to our lives when we stopped forgetting things? Does remembering a friend’s birthday differ when it’s actually an artificial intelligence model that does the remembering? Do these tools actually work outside of work? Tools like Limitless come and improve quickly, and we have to figure out how to live with them.
If you’d like to learn more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get started:
