The BBC has a neat, inventive profile of a Swiss initiative to equip the thinking machines with the communication substrate that tinkerers and programmers--and regular users--may take for granted. Though developers, engineers in either robotics or software or chariots of exploration, are not having to reinvent the wheel on a regular basis, though taking a second look at first-principles or learning by rebuilding the family jalopy are experiences more tactile and perhaps more valuable than ethereal modeling, but their inventions succeed and struggle in a relative vacuum.
If machines were given an open venue, like a Wikipedia, the speculative possibilities are amazing, a library of lessons and experiences to augment dexterity and orientation, which not only shares designs and intelligence but can be built-up in novel and unexpected way by their own electronically-tempered contributions. In the field of artificial intelligence, there is the
CYC project, that has been evolving, parallel for years, giving computers encyclopedic human knowledge for processing. Some of the questions that the computers have formulated are strikingly poignant: given the figures on the human population and the number of entries on notable people, the computer asks why everyone is not famous. Perhaps an almanac also edited in part by machines could yield some interesting insights for both people and robots.
