From: brewster@Think.COM (Brewster Kahle)
Newsgroups: alt.wais,list.wais-discussion
Subject: WAIS-discussion digest #48: How to get the ball rolling
Date: 7 Apr 92 22:36:35 GMT
Organization: Comp.Center (RUS) U of Stuttgart, FRG


       Forum On Wide Area Information Servers and Electronic Publishing
                              Brewster Kahle
                 

Contents:
     WAIS project notes: The Net (Brewster Kahle)

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Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 15:20:43 PDT
From: Brewster Kahle <brewster@Think.COM>
Subject: WAIS project notes: The Net


[I can describe what WAIS is, and what it does, but I have had a hard time
communicating why I think it is important.  Any help would be appreciated.
Late one night I wrote some notes that might be illustrative. -brewster]


		       WAIS Project Notes:    The Net


* Columbia Law School library is running out of space.  They have the
funding for another building, but they are wondering if they should just buy
a Connection Machine instead.

* When People ask what WAIS is about, they have said I look a bit fanatical
and say, "The Net".  When asked how is WAIS maintained, I could only
answer: "The Net".

* There are servers in 8 countries, users in 25 countries, 1-2 new
databases registered every day, and our server technology is getting out of
date, the ideas on how to make better user interfaces are flying.  Who runs
it?  "The Net".  There is a support group on alt.wais, there are
implementation discussions on the email list wais-talk, there is a
collaboration between a programmer in israel and a programmer in North
Carolina to write the next generation protocol.  Where is WAIS?  The Net.
Phone calls; North Carolina WAIS research and support center; standards
meeting in a different city each time; anonymous FTP from think.com,
redistributors in europe and japan.  Where is WAIS?  "The Net".  I was
asked, "Isn't a tower of Babel?"  I was a bit confused.  We use the same
protocol, among our diverse machines -- this is ABOUT communications.  We
are building something new, something big.

* Sitting in my work chair in my house in San Francisco, I get a "talk"
request from a server maintainer in Finland.  I have never physically met
him but we have come to depend on each other.  The talk request allows us
to chat directly, to watch each other's keystrokes.  Not as good as talking
on the phone but we get to know each other.  We talk about the coffee we
just drank (for different points in our day) the work we are doing.  We
finish feeling like we can depend  a bit more on this person we know a
little better.  The Net.

* We server operators know something important is going on, we can see it
in the logs, something new, something large is going on: people are turning
to machines for answering questions, human questions: everyday people are
starting to converse with machines.
  What are they asking?
"What servers do you have?"
"todays weather in florida"
"help me with a WAIS question for source weather"

How do the servers reply?  With trial answers, suggestions of answers, and
often rude replies:
 "Error: can not connect to wall-street-journal".
The person's next question:
 "What servers can I connect to?"  Something new.

* We call ourselves digital librarians, cybrarians, archivists.  We are
pushing more material onto the net.  Weather maps updated hourly, poems,
lyrics, who's who on the net, journal abstracts, library catalogs, library
books.  It goes on and on.

* Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) collections suddenly come to life.  I
found the answer to how to hook up my NeXT computer by asking a machine in
North Carolina.  Asking a machine for advice.  Something is happening.

* The camaraderie is intense, we suffer our logs of questions that should
have been answered.  We want to make our servers better-- we brag of our
usage statistics.  We search for popular data.
  But we are not paid, or at least not yet, for our servers.  what drives
us?  The satisfaction of helping others is tremendous, the comments from
people in other countries other continents, other regional networks is
gratifying.  But there is something more; we are teaching our machines to
help other people, the possibilities are boggling.

* When people interact with machines as they do with people, have we made
an artificial intelligence?  Maybe Turing was wrong to ask machines to
mimic people as the test; maybe it is when people interact with and respect
machines in the ways that they interact and respect other people.  Can we
make a machine that is fun to pal around with?  Is this machine, "The Net"?

* Historians, social scientists have not started to study the interactions,
and I wonder why sometimes.  Maybe because this field does not have a name.
No funding.  A student at the Texas Women's University is the only person
to study the logs, her paper is turned down at a conference, she publishes
anyway: on the net.  The fresh expectations people have of machines will
turn into knowing relationships quickly, the transition is fast.  It is not
being studied.  

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End of WAIS-discussion Digest 48
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