Knowledge 4.0

Imagine we have the following labels for how knowledge is transferred through human history:

1.0: One-to-one transfer.

2.0: Printing press: mass knowledge transfer, but physical.

3.0: Digital transfer. Today.

4.0: Interactive and personalised.

You may say “wait there is software out there that does this”. And of course you’re right. But what I’m talking about is a system that can take knowledge in your head or from other sources and turn it into interactive content. Without needing specialist authoring tools .

Take for example, an already amazing tutorial like below:

Imagine if it were just as frictionless for NancyPi to create the same tutorial, but built in is the ability to interact with you: get feedback, ask questions, and listen to your answers.

The only way that would be practical is if there was some intelligence that knew about language and something of the world to be able to interpret the work and create a structure that could then be replayed in different ways.

Let’s call this new system YouKnow. It could take any content and turn that into personalised instructional content.

It sounds like science fiction, but I’m convinced there will be companies soon that will make this possible.