Why information is key?
Throughout most of human history, information was stored only in the human brain. While early humans were capable of remembering vast amounts of environmental and social data—like which plants were safe to eat or the relationships within their tribe—the brain had major limitations when it came to managing the kinds of information required by complex societies.
As groups of people grew and formed larger, more complex societies, they needed to track laws, taxes, inventories, and events across large populations. This required vast amounts of numerical and administrative data. But the brain is limited in capacity, it dies with its owner, and it evolved to remember survival-related details, not mathematical data. These constraints meant early civilizations struggled to scale and manage their societies effectively.
The turning point came around 3500–3000 BCE, when the Sumerians of Mesopotamia invented writing—a revolutionary system to store and process information outside the human brain. Writing allowed them to manage large-scale data like economic transactions, property records, and government activity. This breakthrough lifted the limitations of memory and made it possible to build complex, stable, and scalable societies—paving the way for the rise of cities, kingdoms, and empires.
More than three thousand years later, another seismic shift occurred. The Gutenberg printing press, invented around 1450, revolutionized society by enabling mass production of books, drastically reducing costs and errors compared to handwritten manuscripts. It democratized knowledge, fostering widespread literacy, education, and cultural development.
Then came the invention of personal computers and the internet profoundly impacted humanity by making information rapidly accessible and enabling the exponential creation and sharing of content. PCs give users access to vast online resources—such as encyclopedias, e-books, and academic journals—supporting efficient research and independent learning. They also empower individuals to quickly create and distribute content through blogs, social media, and multimedia platforms, accelerating creativity and fostering global collaboration at an unprecedented scale.
The arrival of the internet browser marked the end of a centuries-old struggle: the mentally exhausting and unreliable task of remembering impersonal facts—such as historical dates, scientific principles, and general knowledge. From that point on, human memory was no longer the only tool for retrieving information in real time. We began to outsource this burden to machines—tools that were faster, more accurate, and constantly accessible. Accessing collective knowledge became seamless. As a result, our cognitive burden decreased, and society advanced at an unprecedented pace.
Now, we are on the brink of something even more revolutionary.
The next great leap is not about the world’s knowledge—but our own. A new class of tools is emerging, capable of capturing, storing, and instantly retrieving the intricate fabric of our lives: our thoughts, decisions, conversations, reflections. No more forgetting important moments. No more misremembered insights. No more decisions based on fragments. For the first time in history, personal memory is becoming searchable, permanent, and accessible—on demand.
There is no rational reason to rely solely on the fragile, fading mechanisms of human memory for what matters most. These are the truths only we care about—yet they are the very ones we most often lose. Just as we instinctively reach for the internet to resolve uncertainty about the external world, so too should we be able to query our inner world—with clarity, speed, and trust.
This isn’t just a technological shift. It’s a cognitive revolution.
We have already seen how instant access to collective knowledge has transformed science, education, and culture. Now imagine applying that same power to the individual knowledge. If we could make every person as cognitively enhanced as the internet made society, we wouldn’t just be accelerating progress—we’d be unlocking human potential on a scale never before imagined.
Why information is key?
Throughout most of human history, information was stored only in the human brain. While early humans were capable of remembering vast amounts of environmental and social data—like which plants were safe to eat or the relationships within their tribe—the brain had major limitations when it came to managing the kinds of information required by complex societies.
As groups of people grew and formed larger, more complex societies, they needed to track laws, taxes, inventories, and events across large populations. This required vast amounts of numerical and administrative data. But the brain is limited in capacity, it dies with its owner, and it evolved to remember survival-related details, not mathematical data. These constraints meant early civilizations struggled to scale and manage their societies effectively.
The turning point came around 3500–3000 BCE, when the Sumerians of Mesopotamia invented writing—a revolutionary system to store and process information outside the human brain. Writing allowed them to manage large-scale data like economic transactions, property records, and government activity. This breakthrough lifted the limitations of memory and made it possible to build complex, stable, and scalable societies—paving the way for the rise of cities, kingdoms, and empires.
More than three thousand years later, another seismic shift occurred. The Gutenberg printing press, invented around 1450, revolutionized society by enabling mass production of books, drastically reducing costs and errors compared to handwritten manuscripts. It democratized knowledge, fostering widespread literacy, education, and cultural development.
Then came the invention of personal computers and the internet profoundly impacted humanity by making information rapidly accessible and enabling the exponential creation and sharing of content. PCs give users access to vast online resources—such as encyclopedias, e-books, and academic journals—supporting efficient research and independent learning. They also empower individuals to quickly create and distribute content through blogs, social media, and multimedia platforms, accelerating creativity and fostering global collaboration at an unprecedented scale.
The arrival of the internet browser marked the end of a centuries-old struggle: the mentally exhausting and unreliable task of remembering impersonal facts—such as historical dates, scientific principles, and general knowledge. From that point on, human memory was no longer the only tool for retrieving information in real time. We began to outsource this burden to machines—tools that were faster, more accurate, and constantly accessible. Accessing collective knowledge became seamless. As a result, our cognitive burden decreased, and society advanced at an unprecedented pace.
Now, we are on the brink of something even more revolutionary.
The next great leap is not about the world’s knowledge—but our own. A new class of tools is emerging, capable of capturing, storing, and instantly retrieving the intricate fabric of our lives: our thoughts, decisions, conversations, reflections. No more forgetting important moments. No more misremembered insights. No more decisions based on fragments. For the first time in history, personal memory is becoming searchable, permanent, and accessible—on demand.
There is no rational reason to rely solely on the fragile, fading mechanisms of human memory for what matters most. These are the truths only we care about—yet they are the very ones we most often lose. Just as we instinctively reach for the internet to resolve uncertainty about the external world, so too should we be able to query our inner world—with clarity, speed, and trust.
This isn’t just a technological shift. It’s a cognitive revolution.
We have already seen how instant access to collective knowledge has transformed science, education, and culture. Now imagine applying that same power to the individual knowledge. If we could make every person as cognitively enhanced as the internet made society, we wouldn’t just be accelerating progress—we’d be unlocking human potential on a scale never before imagined.
Why information is key?
Throughout most of human history, information was stored only in the human brain. While early humans were capable of remembering vast amounts of environmental and social data—like which plants were safe to eat or the relationships within their tribe—the brain had major limitations when it came to managing the kinds of information required by complex societies.
As groups of people grew and formed larger, more complex societies, they needed to track laws, taxes, inventories, and events across large populations. This required vast amounts of numerical and administrative data. But the brain is limited in capacity, it dies with its owner, and it evolved to remember survival-related details, not mathematical data. These constraints meant early civilizations struggled to scale and manage their societies effectively.
The turning point came around 3500–3000 BCE, when the Sumerians of Mesopotamia invented writing—a revolutionary system to store and process information outside the human brain. Writing allowed them to manage large-scale data like economic transactions, property records, and government activity. This breakthrough lifted the limitations of memory and made it possible to build complex, stable, and scalable societies—paving the way for the rise of cities, kingdoms, and empires.
More than three thousand years later, another seismic shift occurred. The Gutenberg printing press, invented around 1450, revolutionized society by enabling mass production of books, drastically reducing costs and errors compared to handwritten manuscripts. It democratized knowledge, fostering widespread literacy, education, and cultural development.
Then came the invention of personal computers and the internet profoundly impacted humanity by making information rapidly accessible and enabling the exponential creation and sharing of content. PCs give users access to vast online resources—such as encyclopedias, e-books, and academic journals—supporting efficient research and independent learning. They also empower individuals to quickly create and distribute content through blogs, social media, and multimedia platforms, accelerating creativity and fostering global collaboration at an unprecedented scale.
The arrival of the internet browser marked the end of a centuries-old struggle: the mentally exhausting and unreliable task of remembering impersonal facts—such as historical dates, scientific principles, and general knowledge. From that point on, human memory was no longer the only tool for retrieving information in real time. We began to outsource this burden to machines—tools that were faster, more accurate, and constantly accessible. Accessing collective knowledge became seamless. As a result, our cognitive burden decreased, and society advanced at an unprecedented pace.
Now, we are on the brink of something even more revolutionary.
The next great leap is not about the world’s knowledge—but our own. A new class of tools is emerging, capable of capturing, storing, and instantly retrieving the intricate fabric of our lives: our thoughts, decisions, conversations, reflections. No more forgetting important moments. No more misremembered insights. No more decisions based on fragments. For the first time in history, personal memory is becoming searchable, permanent, and accessible—on demand.
There is no rational reason to rely solely on the fragile, fading mechanisms of human memory for what matters most. These are the truths only we care about—yet they are the very ones we most often lose. Just as we instinctively reach for the internet to resolve uncertainty about the external world, so too should we be able to query our inner world—with clarity, speed, and trust.
This isn’t just a technological shift. It’s a cognitive revolution.
We have already seen how instant access to collective knowledge has transformed science, education, and culture. Now imagine applying that same power to the individual knowledge. If we could make every person as cognitively enhanced as the internet made society, we wouldn’t just be accelerating progress—we’d be unlocking human potential on a scale never before imagined.
