I forsee an issue on the horizon, and lo, it is brittleness. Any AI system is 'brittle'; it only works well within the confines of a specific environment. Throw it something it was not designed to handle, and it'll act oddly. The textbook case being that of giving a medical diagnostic system the details of a broken car; for a leaking fuel tank, it'll diagnose tuberculosis. You see?
Wintermute's environment will encompass the user's digital life. Websites, media, phones, laptops, netbooks, wired/wireless networks, pictures, music, movies, documents, etc etc etc. It must be equipped to handle all of these files. It must also be equipped to handle the information about these files and be able to make sense of commands related to these files and the rest of it's environment. The only real, practical way to do that, is to follow a methodology called 'Appliance Computing'. Right now, a computer holds a special place in most folk's minds; it's a magic box which goes wrong sometimes (in essence). Nevermind the numerous tools it has, nevermind the fact that it is truly a tool of multiple uses. It is complicated, and Wintermute must make sense of this complication in order to operate. It must be fully integrated with a web browser. It must be kept aware of downloads and uploads, it must be kept aware at all times. This will mean we will have to lock down certain aspects of the OS; a web browser will have to be fully integrated into the system for Wintermute to function; this means from a development standpoint, we must get rid of the 'pick and choose' ability of programs. A full Wintermute system could not have web-browser XYZ on it, for instance, unless we could ensure we had good enough integration for it. To see the result of spreading our development so thinly, you simply need to think in terms of quantity vs. quality. We can either do a very good job, ensure the user experience is stable, safe and fully intergrated, or we can spend our time trying to make sure every program under the sun can be operated by Wintermute. This does remove 'choice', I admit, but I see no other way to ensure Wintermute can do the job. -Dante
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