Last week I gave a talk at the 2010 Emerging Technologies conference at MIT. I talked about many of my favorite topics, but with a particular orientation toward the future of the technology industry.

Here’s a transcript of the talk:

The Emerging Computation Revolution

When we look back on the history of technology, I think we’ll see that the greatest revolution of the 20th century was the arrival of the concept of computation.

And in these years today, I think we’re seeing something else happen: the emergence of a second set of revolutions made possible by the concept of computation.

And it’s those revolutions that I want to talk about here today.

Now, needless to say, I’m quite involved in these.  And for me it’s really been about a 30-year journey getting to the point we’re at today—slowly understanding what’s possible.

Well, behind me here I have one of the fruits of that—Wolfram|Alpha.

And I want to talk about that, and about the idea of knowledge-based computing that it’s making possible.

There’s a lot of knowledge in the world.  A lot of data that’s been systematically collected.  A lot of methods, models, algorithms, expertise that have been built up.

And ever since I was a kid I’ve wondered whether we could somehow make all of this computable. Whether we could somehow build something that’s a bit like those old science fiction computers.

So that we could just walk up to a machine, and immediately be able to answer any question that can be answered on the basis of the knowledge that our civilization has accumulated.

It’s an ambitious goal. And when I first thought about this nearly 40 years ago, it seemed very far off.

But every decade or so since then I’ve returned to this. And finally, earlier this past decade, I started to think that perhaps it wasn’t crazy to actually try to build something like this.

There were several things that made that possible.

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Keynote talk given at the Wolfram Data Summit in Washington, DC on Thursday, September 9, 2010.

Well, I should start off by admitting one thing.

This Data Summit was my idea.

And I have to say that the #1 reason I wanted to have it was so I could have a chance to meet you all.

So… thanks for coming, and I hope I will have a chance to meet you-all!

Well, I’ve been a collector and an enthusiast of systematic data for about as long as I can remember.

But in the last few years, I’ve launched into what one might think of as the ultimate extreme data project.

It’s actually something I’ve been thinking about since I was a kid.

The idea is: take all the systematic knowledge—and data—that our civilization has accumulated, and somehow make it computable.

Make it so that given any specific question one wants to ask, one can just compute the answer on the basis of that knowledge and data.

Well, every so often I’d think about this again. And it’d always just seem too big and too difficult. And like it was at least decades in the future.

But two things happened in my life. Continue reading

I spent a decade of my life writing A New Kind of Science. Most of that time was devoted to discovering the science in the book. But another part was spent figuring out how to present the science in the best possible way—using words and pictures.

It took a lot of technology to do that presentation. On the software side, the biggest part was using Mathematica to create elaborate algorithmic diagrams—thousands of them. But then came the question of how to actually deliver everything. And back in 2002 when A New Kind of Science was published, the only real possibility was to print a book on paper, using the very best printing technology of the time.

The actual print production process was quite an adventure—going right to the edge of what was possible. But in the end we got many compliments on the object we produced. And from that time to this, that 5.5 lb (2.5 kg) lump of paper has been the definitive representation of my decade-plus of intellectual work.

But today I’m excited to be able to say that there’s something new and in some ways even better: a full version on the iPad.

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I like to write.  And most days I actually do write a lot.  But most of it is not visible to the world at large.  Hundreds of internal emails and documents.  Pieces of content inside Wolfram|Alpha or Mathematica.  The occasional unsigned public webpage or other document.

My purpose in this blog is to have a visible outlet for a little more of what I do, and what I think about.

I’m constantly thinking about new things.  Coming up with new ideas. Getting new perspectives.  Thinking of new possible projects to do.

Usually I don’t talk much about things until or unless I’ve actually done something real with them.  Which can take years, and sometimes decades—if it happens at all.

But I’ve decided it’s time I started writing a little more about what I’m thinking about—rather than always waiting to have a complete, finished, project or product.

I’d also like to write about some of the things that happen in my life.  In some ways my life is delightfully simple and ordinary.  But in others I’ve chosen to make it pretty far out on the curve.

Some of the wildest and juiciest things that happen I won’t be able to write publicly about, typically because they’re someone’s corporate or personal secrets.  Or because, frankly, I don’t want to tell the world about some things I’m doing before I’m ready.

I’m a great believer in the value of history, not least because I think it’s the best way to have an informed view about the future.  I’ve also been a collector of stories—often as a participant.  Sometimes the stories aren’t appropriate for public consumption, at least at the time.  But I’ve now been around long enough that it’s beginning to be OK to tell pretty much any of the earlier ones.  So I hope to have a chance to do that on this blog.

There’s a lot that I could write—about all sorts of topics.  Some of it is timely; some of it I just think I should write down sometime.

I’ll enjoy writing whatever I end up writing.  But if people want to request particular topics, please contact me. I suspect there are a lot of things where I might have something interesting to say, but I’ve never realized it.  So ask me!

The creation of large data repositories has been a key historical indicator of social and intellectual development—and indeed perhaps one of the defining characteristics of the whole progress of civilization.

And through our work on Wolfram|Alpha—with its insatiable appetite for systematic data—we have gained a uniquely broad view of the many great data repositories that exist in the world today.

Some of these repositories are maintained by national or international agencies, some by companies and other organizations, and some by individuals. A few of the repositories are quite new, but many date back 40 or more years, and some well over a century. But there is one thing in common across essentially every great data repository: a core of diligent and committed people who have carefully shepherded its development.

Curiously, though, few of these people have ever met their counterparts in other domains of data. And in our work on Wolfram|Alpha we are almost certainly the first group ever to have had the pleasure of getting to know such a broad range of leaders of great data repositories.

And one of the things that we have discovered is that there is much in common in both the methods used and the issues faced by these data repositories. So as part of our contribution to the worldwide data community we have decided to sponsor a data summit to bring together for the first time the leaders of today’s great data repositories.

The Wolfram Data Summit 2010 will be held in Washington, DC on September 9–10.
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Years ago I wondered if it would ever be possible to systematically make human knowledge computable. And today, one year after the official launch of Wolfram|Alpha, I think I can say for sure: it is possible.

It takes a stack of technology and ideas that I’ve been assembling for nearly 30 years. And in many ways it’s a profoundly difficult project. But this year has shown that it is possible.

Wolfram|Alpha is of course a very long-term undertaking. But much has been built, the direction is set, and things are moving with accelerating speed.

Over the past year, we’ve roughly doubled the amount that Wolfram|Alpha knows. We’ve doubled the number of domains it handles, and the number of algorithms it can use. And we’ve actually much more than doubled the amount of raw data in it.

Things seem to be scaling better and better. The more we put into Wolfram|Alpha, the easier it becomes to add still more. We’ve honed both our automated and human processes, progressively building on what Wolfram|Alpha already does.

When we launched Wolfram|Alpha a year ago, about 2/3 of all queries generated a response. Now over 90% do.

So, what are some of the things we’ve learned over the past year? Continue reading

(This post was originally published on the Wolfram|Alpha Blog.)

So what’s been happening with Wolfram|Alpha this summer? A lot!

At a first glance, the website looks pretty much as it did when it first launched—with the straightforward input field. But inside that simple exterior an incredible amount has happened. Our development organization has been buzzing with activity all summer. In fact, it’s clear from the metrics that the intensity is steadily rising, with things being added at an ever-increasing rate.

Wolfram|Alpha was always planned to be a very long-term project, and paced accordingly. We pushed very hard to get it launched before the summer so that we could spend the “quiet time” of our first summer steadily enhancing it, before more people start using it more intently in the fall.

Two really great things have happened as a result of actually getting Wolfram|Alpha launched. The first is that we’ve discovered that there’s a huge community of people out there who want to help the mission of Wolfram|Alpha. And we’re steadily ramping up our mechanisms for those people to contribute to the project. Continue reading

(This post was originally published on the Wolfram|Alpha Blog.)

It’s now a week since we officially launched Wolfram|Alpha into the world.

It’s been a great first week.

Approaching 100 million queries. Lots of compliments.

But for me the most striking thing is how many people want to help Wolfram|Alpha succeed.

Making the world’s knowledge computable is a huge undertaking.

And it’s wonderful to see all the help we’re being offered in doing it.

We’ve worked hard to construct a framework. But to realize the full promise of computable knowledge, we need a lot of input and support. Continue reading

(This post was originally published on the Wolfram|Alpha Blog.)

Starting later today, we’ll be launching Wolfram|Alpha (you can see the proceedings on a live webcast).

This is a proud moment for us and for the whole Mathematica community. (We hope the launch goes well!)

Wolfram|Alpha defines a new direction in computing—that would have simply not have been possible without Mathematica, and that in time will add some remarkable new dimensions to Mathematica itself.

In terms of technology, Wolfram|Alpha is a uniquely complex software system, which has been entirely developed and deployed with Mathematica and Mathematica technologies.
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May 14, 2009 marks the 7^th anniversary of the publication of A New Kind of Science, and it has been my tradition on these anniversaries to write a short report on the progress of NKS.

It has been fascinating over the past few years to watch the progressive absorption of NKS methods and the NKS paradigm into countless different fields. Sometimes there’s visible mention of NKS, though often there is not.

There has been an inexorable growth in the use of the types of models pioneered in NKS. There has been steadily increasing use of the kinds of computational experiments and investigations introduced in NKS. And the NKS way of thinking about computation and in terms of computation has become steadily more widespread.
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