The birth of the directory

In the beginning a human would follow links until they found a good repository, perhaps a geocities page. Enjoying this source they would bookmark it or memorize the URL. Thus information was led directly from the creator to the consumer. Unprocessed by others, unmodified by computers. We would return to this source from time to time to look for updates or follow some links. Our garden was pruned and tended to over time and grew slowly.

The birth of the search

Humans have a funny tendency to create order from disorder. Rather than reveling in the creation of information, they cite sources, ideas and knowledge. These links within and without sources of information was the beginning of the social web.

Recognizing the social relevance of these links , Google arose to categorize every bit and the way humans connected them. The world became organized through a central arbitor of connectiveness and the information prospered. Bookmarks and directories fell by the wayside as information no longer had to be tended to. Information flowed to us from sources we had never seen before, but had been vetted by other’s gardens.

The birth of the virtual assistant

One day we realized that pages of text were limited in their expression or understanding of the underlying world. We started building apps containing people,places and things. These were able to use their own senses to gather knowledge about the world. The web was becoming alive, able to shift with change and provide knowledge not visible in the the real world. We were recreating reality in digital form.

This allowed us to ask questions of reality and if the virtual form was exact, the answer would be indistinguishable from the truth. The webpage fell by the side as the raw API came into prevalence. The API’s feed of data, consumed by apps and virtual assitants, interpreted this virtual world for us.

The birth of the cyborgs

This duality we created led to frequent fumbling with nearby glass squares. The first of the cyborgs saw that when we spent time in one reality, we tended to ignore the other. In secret they toiled to merge the two worlds so that our bodies could live in both.

Thus the first of the cyborgs were born. They walked between the worlds, could see the unseen, hear the unheard and most importantly, think the unthinkable.