My Response to the Wolfram|Alpha Webinar Survey

{link » Wolfram|Alpha Webinar}

Dear [Senior Research Associate, Wolfram|Alpha Team],

I was impressed with the concepts of Alpha as demonstrated by Stephen Wolfram. Please feel free to visit my blog where I posted my first impressions after the webinar:

God's Gift to Inquiring Minds — Wolfram|Alpha

As to the specific questions for which you would like to have feedback:

1. • I have been retired (from Los Alamos National Laboratory) for seven years now, so I am no longer an active researcher. My main interest is to observe and reflect on our civilization's struggle to outwit the forces of ignorance that wish to drag us into the dark ages, only this time with depleted resources. I think that Alpha is an important victory for the good guys in this ongoing struggle.
   • My wife is a budding researcher in the area of cognitive linguistics, and I intend to cooperate with her to see how she can utilize Alpha's potential. I think it will prove to be a fruitful effort.


2. • I believe Alpha is here to stay, albeit as a living and evolving entity, because of the brilliant minds behind this initial effort.
   • I am not a business-model specialist so I don't think in terms of "for profit" planning. Nevertheless, I feel strongly that Alpha is well planned to support the owners' capitalistic aims (nothing wrong with that), and simultaneously serving the civilized world's needs at relatively low cost. I think an obvious route to this end is to blend proprietary data with some form of open-source means for others to curate their own special sets of data.
   • I also envision a feed-back loop for Alpha to generate knowledge data bases for its own use.


3. • As to things that can aid in getting a foot-hold for Alpha such that its potential can germinate, again that is not really my area of expertise, but I can intuit a few things.
   • I don't believe it would be cost-effective to try to appeal to the masses who flock to Facebook. Perhaps some day everyone will find a use for Alpha, but not until the thirst for knowledge becomes more popular than the thirst for power, money, and information about Paris Hilton.
   • A firm foundation for an evolving system is crucial.
   • Concentrate on robust flexibility, because I think it's hard to predict Alpha's evolving capabilities, just as it was in the early days of personal computing, when most people couldn't think of anything other than trivial "balance your checkbook" applications.

I am looking forward to your launch, and I wish you good luck in your revolutionary endeavor.

Best, Henri

Post #741 My Response to the Wolfram|Alpha Webinar Survey