Howdy, Bubba! Hey, if you're new around these parts, I just want to say how much I appreciate you dropping by! Oh, and you may want to subscribe to my feed. Thanks, and a tip o' the hat to ya!

No, I’m not talking about the latest GM recall, ya big galoot! (Oops, sorry - been watching John Wayne movies lately.) I’m talking about memory, and some new inroads into that Holy Grail of computer scientists everywhere: the ability to recall literally everything we’ve ever experienced. Wouldn’t that be… um, something.

A great article in Fast Company, written by Clive Johnson (I’ll warn you now, it’s a bit long but well worth your time), looks at some of the recent developments in this area, and it is worth pondering. Generally speaking, it focuses on Gordon Bell, a Microsoft computer scientist who’s been experimenting with “life storage” for some time now. A great story, and Clive’s lead-in is a grabber:

Most of us have probably wished at one time or another for the ability to remember things more accurately (or at all!), and this sounds like just the ticket. For example, even though most married men have only two really important things to remember (our anniversary date and, uh… what was that other one…?), on behalf of all men everywhere, I freely acknowledge the fact that we still need the help!

Of course, the technology would have to be a bit more unobtrusive before widespread acceptance would occur (no, that’s not a pimple, that’s my life-cam!) Actually, when you can download directly off the optic and aural nerves is when you’ll really be able to capture everything. Why not? It’s only a question of interface design.

If, as Ray Kurzweil recently predicted, computing power will increase a billion-fold within the next 25 years, this could well become a reality. But with all that information (talk about your information overload!) the next thing that has to be developed is a really useful way of searching all that accumulated information (but I imagine by then there’ll be a Google tool for that too - something like “GoogleBrain”, maybe).

It’s a crazy experiment. But perhaps its craziest aspect is that soon you’ll be part of it too–whether you want to be or not. The way Bell sees it, computers and the Internet are now rapidly becoming capable of storing everything you do and see. Hard-drive space has exploded in size, and every day people are recording more and more of their lives: We blog about our thoughts, upload personal pictures to Flickr, save every email on our infinitely expanding Gmail accounts, shoot video on our cell phones, record phone calls straight to our hard drives when we use Skype.”
OK, assume for the moment that a perfect memory is actually possible by artificial means, just what would the ramifications be?

Imagine if you will the ability to recall exactly what was said in a conversation that occurred, say, six months ago (or six years, or 10 years). How would it change your behavior if everything was being recorded, all the time? Would it all end up as the biggest reality show ever? Well, maybe not. I mean, what’s the point? Why would you WANT to record every little bit of your life? (On the other hand, you won’t ever have an argument about what was really said or not said. Gee – could it change the face of politics as we know it? I don’t know about you, but it brings a certain former President to mind…)

I think along with the ability to do so would have to come the ability to consciously turn the storage function on or off at will. That way you can reduce the storage to what you might actually use. Perhaps even do like some security systems, storing images in a loop of several hours or days. When something important happens (assuming you actually have a life, and something does!), you can then store that memory in its permanent location, wherever that is.

That location will probably be internal – at the rate of increase in storage density, in thirty years or less, “infinite” storage should be possible in a size easily compatible with in vitro locations - and I have the perfect place in mind: why not use all that otherwise wasted space between the ears?

[Update: I fixed the link to Clive's story above. Sorry 'bout that!]

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