What will the tools for thought space look like in 5 years?

There is an explosion of activity in this space at the moment. People like Andy Matuschak are finding creative ways to fund research in this space while tools like Roam, Obsidian, Logseq, and Athens race to capture mind share amid an inflow of venture capital and eager users. Is this another technology fad (I don’t think so) or are we seeing novel progress being made in the utility we can extract from machines in this age of transistor abundance? And why now? None of the underlying technology at the core of these tools (rich back-linking, Datalog in the case of Athens and Logseq) was impossible 10 years ago, what changed in 2021? Did the pandemic spur this innovation? From what heights (if any) will we be looking back on this space in five or ten years?

See How can we develop transformative tools for thought? by Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen