Me and Mr. Tibbs

Bookshelf Scanning for Knowledge

What I’m still not seeing is my unknown unknown. Getting a glimpse into that is the most precious gift Mr. Tibbs can deliver. It will come in part by seeing how my present has emerged from my past, but perhaps most clearly by the information that I don’t have for Mr. Tibbs. For example, I’d love Mr. Tibbs—Thanks to the personal or upX—to scan my bookshelves. By Tibbs 4.0, AI should have gotten quite competent at identifying books by their spines even if the print is worn away, aided by the context of the other spines near it. One can only hope that by then, upX will be able to sense how much dust has gathered on each book, an indication of the last time I used it.

This matters because the books we’ve read are who we’re trying to be. The books we own but haven’t read hint at where we’ve overreached. The books that aren’t on our shelves at all are the worlds we have ignored, either because we don’t see their value or relevance, or because we haven’t imagined them at all. What a rich resource for an agent that knows so much about what I care about and how I got to that space!

Books are not the only negative spaces that can teach Mr. Tibbs much about me. What email conversations did I enter, and which did I not? I am sure there are deep patterns to that from which I could learn much about myself as a social being, about my web of interests and about the opportunities I missed that perhaps I should be more open to.

Presumably, Mr. Tibbs will be able to find some meaning in the chaos that is my office. Is it, statistically thinking, a reflection of my intellectual attraction to the world as a chaos of individuals and particulars? Or, will Mr. Tibbs help me to see that I’m just a committed slob?

Most likely, both.