This sounds like one agent at each junction point, that may or may not be running the same model and architecture as the previous one, and they need to constantly crawl each other or just a protocol to call each other.
But then you have a million of then constructing a docuverse web all having an agent who all need to know each other and its all connections and each a database repository.
Well you only need links that exist, and those that are created.
In a paragraph it may exist in one node that is referenced and that node may be a collection of other nodes, or each sentence or even each word points to other nodes, how much does each model know and what does it keep in its database.
A point to the next node is not necessarily durable or versioned, and that goes for each node is connects to.
A single paragraph could have thousands or more sources, references, and each source would need versioning and depending on version it may well point to different nodes in prior or future versions.
A proper version of a paragraph would then need to know this, or expect that all nodes with an agent will be durable and rational and interoperable
but if you build on that premise it will not work in the real world.
All unless you keep the docuverse limited in scope to a few data stores and agents who comprehend that spatial universe, and it is a form of an intranet
This post buys into the common narrative about Xanadu, that it was a fundamentally good idea that failed due to some combination of poor execution, being too far ahead of its time, and the market not caring about quality (with this post in particular focusing mostly on the second thing).
In my view, Gwern makes a compelling counterargument: Xanadu was a fundamentally bad idea. The parts of it that weren't incorporated into the World Wide Web either solved problems no one actually had, or couldn't have constituted a stable equilibrium between users and publishers (i.e., even if it'd been magically willed into existence, it'd have quickly fallen apart). https://gwern.net/xanadu
Interesting. This and the other posts I've seen about Delta seems to exist in that liminal space, were it's difficult to tell if the author has had a brilliant insight, that they struggle to convey to anyone who's not yet had the same insight; or if they've simply gone slightly mad.
It's a similar sense I get with reading Nelson (after being able to think about his ideas for a while, I'm quite certain it was mostly genius and only a little bit of lunacy).
It remains to see how Delta will turn out.
On a side-note; my initial reaction to the headline was; no. Xanadu wasn't missing agents.
I do think I see where the author is going, though; and I think I agree that agents might be a new tool that might facilitate some hypertext ideas. Not Xanadu perhaps. But some other, more pragmatic and less magic place - but a place that is a little more magical than where we are now.
And it intersects a bit with an experiment we started at work; migrating our modest web site from WordPress to a static site combining 11ty (https://11ty.dev) (we already lean heavily on typescript for our application development) and visual studio code with frontmatter cms (https://frontmatter.codes) - and AI/LLMs.
AI helps with making a static page version of our site, and adopting to 11ty.
The idea is that with trivial push-to-deploy setup, our business people, with the help of AI in vs code, will be able to work directly with 11ty and git to make changes, do reviews and publish changes.
A hill that would probably have been too steep for them to climb just six months ago.
So in reference to the theme of realizing a better hypertext system with the help of AI, we're sort of doing the same thing, it turns out: mix solid, boring tools (static site gen, typescript, editor, version control, CI, static hosting) and some AI - to hopefully allow more users leverage both tooling and AI in an empowering way.
We've just stated the experiment - we may yet fly too close to the sun, and end up falling back to a traditional CMS.
I think not are the same the only thing that differentiates them is adoption. If people show interest in the thing you are a genius if they don't you are mad/crazy.
One reason I have some hope for this approach is that we start by removing complexity by going to a static web site first.
We remove WordPress, database, configuration, templates - a lot of cruft.
Then we can add it back as needed for keeping edits and publishing simple. It might turn out we hardly need anything from 11ty, thanks to AI making editing more automatic.
I think (the collective) we, are (mostly by accident) building systems that are at least one dimension or level of higher abstraction than before AI.
Unfortunately with AI, higher abstraction doesn't automatically mean less complexity, or better managed complexity.
I think 95% of systems being built now with Al and on top of - or including Al - will turn out to be highly complected mountains of madness.
One of my favorite LLM-smells to train myself to sniff out is how well the author can tie two seemingly disparate ideas together into something compelling or novel. The more ambitious the synthesis and the less impressed I am the more likely I am to assume it was at least partially the work of an LLM.
The content was clearly AI written. It made no sense. Even crazy humans such as Terry Davis made more sense than such AI slop generated "blog" entries.
Well let's not forget Zigzag. This is hyperstructure and Ted's greatest achievement. If you want to try it out, Gzz 0706.jar runs on Java https://www.nongnu.org/gzz/download.html
Reading this makes me wish someone would really try to make Project Xanadu a reality. A network built on Content Addressable Storage and a Version Control System is some thing I'd really like to see invested in.
It's not a reality for a lack of trying. Multiple people have spent (literal!) lifetimes working on Xanadu and multiple businesses poured a great deal of money and effort into it way back in the day.
It continues to not be a thing because, even though the idea is superficially appealing to a certain engineer mind and that's why people get sucked into the cult, in reality it's not something anybody wants and it's solving a problem nobody has.
Right. I knew those people back when Autodesk owned Xanadu. The fundamental problem was that tracking and paying for text ownership and viewing down to the word level isn't really very useful. The Xanadu people were libertarians into micropayments. Everything is pay per view in Xanadu. Not cheap views, expensive ones, like Lexis/Nexis.
Also, they had no idea how to deal with either images or distributed systems.
> So when web technology exploded in the '90s, developers bypassed xanalogical computing in favor of ease: links are simple strings which break if their target moves. Maintenance became users' problems — instead of the system's responsibility — but it was easy for anyone to ship fast, and they did.
developers bypassed - Really not a fan of statements like these from a CEO even if they used to be a developer.
Usually developers have to work within an organisational hierarchy that doesn't grant them infinite time or money.
For anyone else that's been thinking a lot about Ted this year, I recommend this (weird) youtube series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGpBQgZ5IsI&list=PLsfH1Ahi4S...
Well you only need links that exist, and those that are created.
In a paragraph it may exist in one node that is referenced and that node may be a collection of other nodes, or each sentence or even each word points to other nodes, how much does each model know and what does it keep in its database. A point to the next node is not necessarily durable or versioned, and that goes for each node is connects to.
A single paragraph could have thousands or more sources, references, and each source would need versioning and depending on version it may well point to different nodes in prior or future versions.
A proper version of a paragraph would then need to know this, or expect that all nodes with an agent will be durable and rational and interoperable but if you build on that premise it will not work in the real world.
All unless you keep the docuverse limited in scope to a few data stores and agents who comprehend that spatial universe, and it is a form of an intranet
Skimmed the article, saw this, and then my AI fatigue closed the tab.
In my view, Gwern makes a compelling counterargument: Xanadu was a fundamentally bad idea. The parts of it that weren't incorporated into the World Wide Web either solved problems no one actually had, or couldn't have constituted a stable equilibrium between users and publishers (i.e., even if it'd been magically willed into existence, it'd have quickly fallen apart). https://gwern.net/xanadu
It's a similar sense I get with reading Nelson (after being able to think about his ideas for a while, I'm quite certain it was mostly genius and only a little bit of lunacy).
It remains to see how Delta will turn out.
On a side-note; my initial reaction to the headline was; no. Xanadu wasn't missing agents.
I do think I see where the author is going, though; and I think I agree that agents might be a new tool that might facilitate some hypertext ideas. Not Xanadu perhaps. But some other, more pragmatic and less magic place - but a place that is a little more magical than where we are now.
And it intersects a bit with an experiment we started at work; migrating our modest web site from WordPress to a static site combining 11ty (https://11ty.dev) (we already lean heavily on typescript for our application development) and visual studio code with frontmatter cms (https://frontmatter.codes) - and AI/LLMs.
AI helps with making a static page version of our site, and adopting to 11ty.
The idea is that with trivial push-to-deploy setup, our business people, with the help of AI in vs code, will be able to work directly with 11ty and git to make changes, do reviews and publish changes.
A hill that would probably have been too steep for them to climb just six months ago.
So in reference to the theme of realizing a better hypertext system with the help of AI, we're sort of doing the same thing, it turns out: mix solid, boring tools (static site gen, typescript, editor, version control, CI, static hosting) and some AI - to hopefully allow more users leverage both tooling and AI in an empowering way.
We've just stated the experiment - we may yet fly too close to the sun, and end up falling back to a traditional CMS.
We remove WordPress, database, configuration, templates - a lot of cruft.
Then we can add it back as needed for keeping edits and publishing simple. It might turn out we hardly need anything from 11ty, thanks to AI making editing more automatic.
I think (the collective) we, are (mostly by accident) building systems that are at least one dimension or level of higher abstraction than before AI.
Unfortunately with AI, higher abstraction doesn't automatically mean less complexity, or better managed complexity.
I think 95% of systems being built now with Al and on top of - or including Al - will turn out to be highly complected mountains of madness.
Previously, "Jimi Hendrix Was a Systems Engineer" <https://spectrum.ieee.org/jimi-hendrix-systems-engineer>
It continues to not be a thing because, even though the idea is superficially appealing to a certain engineer mind and that's why people get sucked into the cult, in reality it's not something anybody wants and it's solving a problem nobody has.
Also, they had no idea how to deal with either images or distributed systems.
developers bypassed - Really not a fan of statements like these from a CEO even if they used to be a developer.
Usually developers have to work within an organisational hierarchy that doesn't grant them infinite time or money.
Warning: this repo likely contains everything that you should not do.
https://gitworkshop.dev/npub17g32uxml7y4rf4jwlju6fd58nhzaafd...
A clock for a world with no center.
Names that can't lie.
Convergence without coordination.
Storage too cheap to delete.
Machines summoned in milliseconds.
OK, got it.
I wish someone here could introduce me to Ted Nelson, I would have loved to interview him! And yes, I've been building the "Xanadu" vision since 2011:
https://github.com/Qbix <-- hosting and editing your own websites
https://github.com/Intercoin <-- blockchain since 2018
https://github.com/Safebots <-- AI agents since 2026
https://github.com/Safebots/Safecloud <-- for example, micropayments