These last several weeks, my thoughts have been directed toward the incredible advancement that the human race is currently experiencing. People are talking about the advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) and making broad and sweeping claims about Artificial Intelligence (AI). These claims can be preposterous, humorous, and sometimes just downright inflammatory. The amount of disinformation about the state of modern computing is really staggering, probably due in large part to the desire by many companies to inflate valuation based on the outlandish potential of certain technologies.
There is one area, however, which I think is highly pertinent. It is the idea that these advancements—specifically, the capability to rapidly summarize and present a sort of collective consciousness drawn from large repositories of human thought—will have an incredible impact on our society. I don’t think we fully grasp the magnitude or reach of this impact yet.
When peasants could actually start reading the Bible for themselves in the late 1400s, the rapid liberalization of society was unstoppable. Freedoms, rights, creativity, and enterprise all blossomed so rapidly that it was not possible for aging bureaucratic systems to maintain their power. Of course, that also brought great challenges, some of which we are still grappling with today. Now we’ve entered a new era, where knowledge is nearly ubiquitous—at least for those who can afford an internet connection and a $20-a-month subscription.
This has led me to dust off some of my old computer science lectures from when I was younger. I distantly remembered one of the first papers published on the idea of a future device that could augment human thought, so I looked it up and re-read the paper. What I read floored me. Just a few years ago, this paper would have been perceived as largely fanciful, but today? It reads almost like a blueprint.
The article is by Vannevar Bush, published in the July 1945 issue of The Atlantic. Here’s the link: As We May Think. The article, titled “As We May Think,” highlighted an Associated Press image of a telegraph machine. Here is the first statement from the article, which made me pause and consider just how visionary this was back in 1945:
“Consider a future device … in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”
Dr. Bush was one of many scientists drawn into the all-consuming World War. He lamented how science had been used, for both good and ill, to create instruments of war. What he proposed, in essence, was that we might turn from using science and technology to expand human power toward using it to expand the human mind. Considering the unprecedented scale of human life lost during the war, this was his attempt to persuade his colleagues to refocus their pursuits on improving life rather than enabling destruction.
Bush’s essay is one of the most formative essays ever written in the realm of computer science. You could argue it profoundly influenced the fields of information science, cognitive augmentation, and computing, ultimately laying the groundwork for concepts we now associate with hypertext, the internet, and personal knowledge management systems. In this essay, Bush envisioned the Memex as a personal mechanical device that would store and retrieve vast amounts of information, similar to an external extension of human memory and thought processes. The word “Memex” itself is a combination of “Memory” and “Index.” Dr. Bush imagined a mechanized workstation resembling a desk with multiple screens, levers, buttons, microfilm reels, and other mechanical parts. Although he described a mechanical system using microfilm, the conceptual power of Memex inspired people to consider how such a device could become reality.
Do you remember the film Minority Report starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg? In the film, Cruise’s character uses gesture technology to interface with an advanced intelligent computing system. This film had the same sort of impact as Dr. Bush’s Memex; it allowed people to envision how such marvels could actually become reality. It opened our eyes to the possibility of creating machines that act as extensions of our minds.
Although Dr. Bush only devoted a few paragraphs to his Memex idea, he articulated four powerful ways computing could interface with and aid the human mind. All these ideas are so pertinent today that you might think Dr. Bush had transported himself to 2025 and watched one of us working with a modern computer, browsing the internet, engaging on social media, using a file-sharing service, and interacting with an LLM.
Briefly, his Memex idea would feature a vast information storage capability, allowing a person to store all their documents, books, records, and images. It would include an entire encyclopedia’s worth of knowledge as reference. He felt this Memex should operate in the way the human brain naturally thinks—through associative links rather than strictly hierarchical or alphabetical indexing. He proposed the revolutionary concept of “associative trails,” much like what we now call “links” on the internet. Even more incredibly, the Memex would allow users to create their own trails through information, building personally meaningful associations between ideas, documents, and images. These trails could be saved, shared, and retrieved later, thus enhancing personal knowledge and creativity. He envisioned rapid access to any stored information, minimizing retrieval time and aligning with the natural speed of human thought processes. Lastly, he foresaw users sharing their trails with others, fostering a collaborative exchange of knowledge.
In my computer science lectures, we explored how Bush’s ideas remarkably influenced later innovators. Douglas Engelbart’s concepts, including the mouse and hypertext; Ted Nelson’s work; and Tim Berners-Lee’s creation of the World Wide Web—Berners-Lee directly attributed inspiration to Bush’s 1945 article. As I sit here now, looking through my own computer, I realize how this Memex concept has genuinely come to life. I have a personal knowledge graph using tools like Obsidian. I engage in collaborative document and knowledge sharing through products like Notion and GitHub. I use AskTuring.ai to augment knowledge retrieval from my personal data collections. I extend my research capabilities using ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Though I don’t often use visual interfaces like VR headsets, the technology is available. Multiple monitors, as envisioned by Dr. Bush, are standard in my workspace. Each of these systems attempts—in some way—to replicate, expand, and fulfill the original Memex vision of augmenting human memory, creativity, and productivity through technology.
I am truly blown away that Vannevar Bush’s Memex concept from 1945 fundamentally anticipated modern computing paradigms, information architecture, and cognitive augmentation strategies. This has inspired me to explore further how I might expand upon these core ideas. How can modern technology continue to enhance human associative thinking, rapid retrieval, and shared knowledge? I find it exciting that here we are, nearly 80 years later, finally able to make Memex—one of the most influential visions of the future—a reality.
