If we can see how some of the basic assumptions that we bring to the development of computing technologies lead us away from improvement in our ability to solve problems collectively, we can reexamine those assumptions and chart a different course.

Flexible view control

If it is easier to update any part of your working record to accommodate new developments in thought or circumstance,

SRI Summary Report AFOSR-3223 • Prepared for: Director of Information Sciences, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Washington DC, Contract AF 49(638)-1024 • SRI Project No. 3578 (AUGMENT,3906,). Click here for scan of the original printed report [ PDF/Print | eReader ] See also About Doug's 1962 Report for more resources.

Click here for scan of the original printed report [ PDF/Print | eReader ]

1.Long Range The long-range objective of this program is to increase significantly the effectiveness of human problem solvers. At any given stage of progress, our aim will be to recognize the controllable factors that limit the individual's particular level of effectiveness, and to develop means for raising that level. We are concerned with an individual's ability to gain comprehension in complex problem situations, to recognize the key factors therein, to develop effective solutions to these problems, and to see that these solutions are successfully implemented. Problem-solving effectiveness is improved if solutions can be found to problems that previously were too "hard" to solve at all, or (for previously solveable [sic] problems) if the same solutions could be found in a shorter time, or if a better solution could be found within the same time.

The basic concept of utilizing technological aids in close cooperation with an individual's detailed problem-solving activities is not new. Indeed, our books, pencils and typewriters attest to a long evolution of the concept. In recent yearst however, a number of basically new approaches to the problem have been initiated. Several researchers (2-8) have pointed out the gains offered by close integration of modern information-handling equipment with the human problem solver. Many contributions have been made in different disciplinary areas--e.g. human engineering, problem-solvillg and educational psychology, linguistics, computer programming, electronic display systems, computer time sharing, operations research, management science, systems engineering, and industrial engineering--all of which appear to form part of a normal evolutionary development toward increased understanding of man-machine integration problems. Also, a number of efforts (9-13) are under way that bear more directly upon the type of man-computer cooperation envisaged in our program; however, none of these has revealed as basic an approach as that proposed herein. Perhaps the most useful work to guide our early activities is that in artificial intelligence and heuristic programming (14-16), where problem-solving processes and nlethods of approach have been developed for totally man-made systems.

The Engelbart story is also a wonderful case study in collaborative innovation, and the strange tendency of certain places at certain moments in time to produce a disproportionate number of new ideas:A few decades ago, the musician and artist Brian Eno coined a term to describe the collective IQ of creative hubs at their peak: Florence in the 1500s, Harlem in the 1920s. He called that group creativity “scenius”.

the thing is about vision, same with the ear, you can only see a few at a time in detail, but you can be aware of 100 things at once. So one of the things we're really bad about is, because of our eyes, you can't get the visual point of view we want. Our eyes have a visual point of view of like 160 degrees. But what I've got here is about 25, and on a cellphone it's pathetic. So this is completely wrong. 100% wrong. Wrong in a really big way. If you look at the first description that Engelbart ever wrote about what he wanted, it was a display that was three feet on its side, built into a desk, because what is it that you design on? If anybody's ever looked at a drafting table, which they may not have for a long time, you need room to design, because there's all this bullshit that you do wrong, right?

Three principal conclusions may be drawn concerning the significance and implications of the ideas that have been presented.6a First any possibility for improving the effective utilization of the intellectual power of society's problem solvers warrants the most serious consideration. This is because man's problem-solving capability represents possibly the most important resource possessed by a society. The other contenders for first importance are all critically dependent for their development and use upon this resource. Any possibility for evolving an art or science that can couple directly and significantly to the continued development of that resource should warrant doubly serious consideration.6b Second, the ideas presented are to be considered in both of the above senses: the direct-development sense and the 'art of development' sense. To be sure, the possibilities have long-term implications, but their pursuit and initial rewards await us now. By our view, we do not have to wait until we learn how the human mental processes work, we do not have to wait until we learn how to make computers more intelligent or bigger or faster, we can begin developing powerful and economically feasible augmentation systems on the basis of what we now know and have. Pursuit of further basic knowledge and improved machines will continue into the unlimited future, and will want to be integrated into the "art" and its improved augmentation systems—but getting started now will provide not only orientation and stimulation for these pursuits, but will give us improved problem-solving effectiveness with which to carry out the pursuits.6c Third, it becomes increasingly clear that there should be action now—the sooner the better—action in a number of research communities and on an aggressive scale. We offer a conceptual framework and a plan for action, and we recommend that these be considered carefully as a basis for action If they be considered but found unacceptable, then at least serious and continued effort should be made toward developing a more acceptable conceptual framework within which to view the over-all approach, toward developing a more acceptable plan of action, or both.6d This is an open plea to researchers and to those who ultimately motivate, finance, or direct them, to turn serious attention toward the possibility of evolving a dynamic discipline that can-treat the problem of improving intellectual effectiveness in a total sense. This discipline should aim at producing a continuous cycle of improvements—increased understanding of the problem, improved means for developing new augmentation systems, and improved augmentation systems that can serve the world's problem solvers in general and this discipline's workers in particular. After all, we spend great sums for disciplines aimed at understanding and harnessing nuclear power. Why not consider developing a discipline aimed at understanding and harnessing "neural power?" In the long run, the power of the human intellect is really much the more important of the two.

Program on Human Effectiveness

box 1, folder 8 ARC Record 1 1959-1962

The essay is most famous for its description of a hypothetical information-retrieval system, the Memex, a kind of mechanical Evernote, in which a person's every "book, record, or communication" was microfilmed and cataloged.

It was a general‑purpose tool designed to help knowledge workers perform better and faster, and that was a controversial idea. Letting nonengineers interact directly with a computer was seen as harebrained, utopian—subversive, even.

That payoff will come when we make better use of computers to bring communities of people together and to augment the very human skills that people bring to bear on difficult problems

when you're reading some fresh code in your browser, do you really want to stop to configure that test harness

Imagine you could take those Lego pieces and put them in any place you wanted: in emails, in chats, in other apps,

Douglas Engelbart, who published a vision of tools empowering humans in his pioneering 1962 paper Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework.

Engelbart’s strategic vision began with the recognition of a major reason why some large-scale problems continue to elude humankind’s best efforts. His radical scale change principle asserts that as a complex system increases in scale, it changes not only in size but also in its qualities. This principle, in fact one of the three basic laws of Hegelian dialectic, seems at odds with the common-sense view that large-scale systems are reducible to smaller-scale parts without loss of qualities. Even if Engelbart knew that the computer was just another artifact at a time when more engineering was not necessarily the solution, he also knew that this specific language artifact was offering unusual characteristics. He understood that the computer was opening the cognitive realm to more dimensions than the usual three, allowing non-linear thinking. But, most importantly, it was extremely fast; it could calculate, display and help organize ideas at a blazing speed. He realized that the introduction of the computer, as a powerful auxiliary to human intellect, could turn a quantitative change into a qualitative change. Facing numerous too urgent and complex problems, the little inelastic mind of the human being could, with the augmentation of the computer, become up to the challenge. Most importantly, this basic tenet of his philosophy ended up playing as important of part in the human system as in the tool system.

In a 1995 interview for JCN Profiles entitled “Visionary Leaders of the Information Age,” Engelbart argues that, while tech (which he calls “the tool system”) has advanced beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, “the human system” continues to lag. He explains: The scale of change [on the tool side was] going to increase by huge factors in the coming decades. It became apparent to me then that this human system side was in for massive, massive changes. […] Are we ready for viewing the scale of change on this [human] side that it will take in order to really, really harness what’s over here [tool side]? […] We better start learning and being explicit about this change in the human system rather than just letting the product people throw new stuff at us.

When I look at what the connected world has become, I can’t help but feel that Mike Daisey was right: “We were hopelessly naïve.” And the more I learn about Douglas Engelbart, the earliest days of the personal computer, and the internet, the more I believe that the technology that currently shapes our experience of the world is designed based on unquestioned assumptions and ideologies. By questioning them now, perhaps we can change the future.

I was pretty annoyed with myself for having fallen for the trap of not documenting my own systems, but not sure how I could have remembered all of the Hugo-isms

Three principal conclusions may be drawn concerning the significance and implications of the ideas that have been presented.6a First any possibility for improving the effective utilization of the intellectual power of society's problem solvers warrants the most serious consideration. This is because man's problem-solving capability represents possibly the most important resource possessed by a society. The other contenders for first importance are all critically dependent for their development and use upon this resource. Any possibility for evolving an art or science that can couple directly and significantly to the continued development of that resource should warrant doubly serious consideration.6b Second, the ideas presented are to be considered in both of the above senses: the direct-development sense and the 'art of development' sense. To be sure, the possibilities have long-term implications, but their pursuit and initial rewards await us now. By our view, we do not have to wait until we learn how the human mental processes work, we do not have to wait until we learn how to make computers more intelligent or bigger or faster, we can begin developing powerful and economically feasible augmentation systems on the basis of what we now know and have. Pursuit of further basic knowledge and improved machines will continue into the unlimited future, and will want to be integrated into the "art" and its improved augmentation systems—but getting started now will provide not only orientation and stimulation for these pursuits, but will give us improved problem-solving effectiveness with which to carry out the pursuits.6c Third, it becomes increasingly clear that there should be action now—the sooner the better—action in a number of research communities and on an aggressive scale. We offer a conceptual framework and a plan for action, and we recommend that these be considered carefully as a basis for action If they be considered but found unacceptable, then at least serious and continued effort should be made toward developing a more acceptable conceptual framework within which to view the over-all approach, toward developing a more acceptable plan of action, or both.6d This is an open plea to researchers and to those who ultimately motivate, finance, or direct them, to turn serious attention toward the possibility of evolving a dynamic discipline that can-treat the problem of improving intellectual effectiveness in a total sense. This discipline should aim at producing a continuous cycle of improvements—increased understanding of the problem, improved means for developing new augmentation systems, and improved augmentation systems that can serve the world's problem solvers in general and this discipline's workers in particular. After all, we spend great sums for disciplines aimed at understanding and harnessing nuclear power. Why not consider developing a discipline aimed at understanding and harnessing "neural power?" In the long run, the power of the human intellect is really much the more important of the two.

NexistWiki exists at the intersection of Weblogs, Wikis, and Douglas Engelbart's call for massive improvements in addressability and evolvability of information resources. Each object presented on a Webpage with NexistWiki is followed by two objects

a working station that has a visual display screen some three feet on a side; this is his working surface, and is controlled by a computer (his "clerk") with which he can communicate by means of a small keyboard and various other devices

different planes here and there, curved surfaces occasionally

can be of significant benefit to the human in nonmathematical processes of planning, organizing, studying, etc.

He is designing a building. He has already dreamed up several basic layouts and structural forms,

The individual does not use this information and this processing to grapple directly with the sort of complex situation in which we seek to give him help. He uses his innate capabilities in a rather more indirect fashion, since the situation is generally too complex to yield directly to his motor actions, and always too complex to yield comprehensions and solutions from direct sensory inspection and use of basic cognitive capabilities.

These are only a few of the total, I'm sure

such that computer processes based upon these rules can be said to extract meaning from these statements and to do operations based upon this meaning.

if you were being given a personal discussion-demonstration by a friendly fellow (named Joe)

maintain stoutly that a practical augmentation system should not require the human to have to do any computer programming—they feel that this is too specialized a capability to burden people with

we very rarely go back to it in its original form

something like footnotes, only much more flexible

Let us use what we call 'antecedent links'

'What's this?', 'How come?', and 'So what?'

Golly, you could be writing math expressions, ad copy, or a poem, with the same type of benefit.

far-reaching effects throughout the rest of your capability hierarchy

We assume that it is our H-LAM/T system (Human using Language, Artifacts, Methodology, in which he is Trained) that has the capability and that performs the process in any instance of use of this repertoire.

just as the mechanic must know what his tools can do and how to use them, so the intellectual worker must know the capabilities of his tools and have good methods, strategies, and rules of thumb for making use of them.

augmentation means, and we define four basic classes of them

changes in our technology or in our understanding of the human being.

the intelligence of a human being, derived ultimately from the characteristics of individual nerve cells,

executive capability

In other words, the human mind neither learns nor acts by large leaps, but by steps organized or structured so that each one depends upon previous steps.

more-rapid comprehension, better comprehension, the possibility of gaining a useful degree of comprehension in a situation that previously was too complex, speedier solutions, better solutions, and the possibility of finding solutions to problems that before seemed insoluble.

involving the unconscious processing and mediating of received and self-generated information, and the unconscious mediating of conscious processing itself.

effective intellectual augmentation was always realized within a system, and that any intervention intended to accelerate intellectual augmentation must be understood as an intervention in a system.

Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework

manipulating

Links in Images. It is of course possible to create image maps but the current tools do not support this for non-graphics people. Doug had the example of showing a basic map where each location name could be clicked on to jump to its corresponding document. This is not quick to do today. https://youtu.be/M5PgQS3ZBWA?t=953

An opportunity arises for interested NICs to connect and collaborate in a NIC of NICs, or MetaNIC, for collectively improving core capabilities like DKRs. This introduces an accelerative multiplier for member NICs and their constituent NICs.1g One type of MetaNIC will have special strategic significance – a NIC whose focus for improvement would be improving the development and utilization of DKRs. I would encourage many such NICs to explore this frontier.

Distributed Cognition

Three or four years later, Engelbart repeated his hypertext-meets-desktop-sharing-meets-video-conferencing demo. In the audience was an MIT prof described by Andries van Dam, another east-coast prof in attendance, as among "the best and the brightest" of the early 1970s computing cognoscenti. According to van Dam, at the end of the presentation, the MIT man raised his hand and said "I don't get it - everything you've shown me today I can do on my ASR-33."

"Doug's demo was not unlike a flying saucer dropping out of the sky and landing on the White House lawn,Â" Saffo continues. Â"It just electrified this industry because it showed people the potential of computers that they never considered."

process hierarchies

People say that the 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco was a watershed. After seeing your demonstration, people left that room never thinking about computers the same way again. Would you say that's an accurate encapsulation?

In 1968 Doug Engelbart showed a hypertext system that could link to regions within documents. I

payoff will come when we make better use of computers to bring communities of people together and to augment the very human skills that people bring to bear on difficult problems

Matthew Schneider developed the first HID implementation which generates purple numberson-the-fly for HTML and text documents which he published in 2002.