Awesome, not awesome.

#Awesome
"A.I. presents the challenge of reckoning with our skewed histories, while working to counterbalance our biases, and genuinely recognizing ourselves in each other. This is an opportunity to expand — rather than further homogenize — what it means to be human through and alongside A.I. technologies. This implies changes in many systems: education, government, labor, and protest, to name a few. All are opportunities if we, the people, demand them and our leaders are brave enough to take them on.” - Stephanie Dinkins, Artist & associate professor of art Learn More from The New York Times >

#Not Awesome
"An autonomous missile under development by the Pentagon uses software to choose between targets. An artificially intelligent drone from the British military identifies firing points on its own. Russia showcases tanks that don’t need soldiers inside for combat. A.I. technology has for years led military leaders to ponder a future of warfare that needs little human involvement. But as capabilities have advanced, the idea of autonomous weapons reaching the battlefield is becoming less hypothetical...defense contractors, identifying a new source of revenue, are eager to build the next-generation machinery." - Adam Satariano, Tech Correspondent Learn More from The New York Times >

What we're reading.

1/ MIT takes a huge step to the advancement of artificial intelligence, using a $1 billion investment to teach bilinguals of the future - people who are highly skilled both in their field of expertise and in machine learning. Learn More from The New York Times >

2/ Expect to hear the term "Data minimalism," used more often - it's used to describe a problem that doesn't spit off enough data for it to be solved with machine learning techniques. Learn More from Axios >

3/ Algorithms aren't developed in a vacuum free of bias, they're developed in the real world by real people - expect the bias to be built into them. Learn More from Quartz >

4/ Many of the world's top artists use AI tools to reimagine landscapes and design new, more "interactive visual experiences." Learn More from The New York Times >

5/ Large tech companies must be expected to work closely with civil rights group and researchers to ensure that their algorithms don't violate human rights. Learn More from MIT Technology Review >

6/ Journal raised a $1.5 million seed round, using start of the art machine learning to help people do more with their information and combat information overload. Learn More from TechCrunch >

7/ Chatbots are starting to replace *part* of the role doctors play - like providing initial diagnoses and prescribing medicine - but they won't help people cope with the treatments that are handed out. Learn More from MIT Technology Review >

What we're building.

Meet Journal
We started Journal excited to answer a single question.

What would be possible if our information — about people, projects, and ideas — was connected and easily accessible?

In a year after closing our Seed funding round, we’ve started moving towards an answer. We are building a new kind of Journal. You write notes in it, save interesting links, and drop in important documents and messages for later. When you need something, ask Journal, and it will actually help you find it.

Journal integrates with the services where your information lives (like Slack, Gmail, Evernote, Pocket, and Dropbox) — so that you have one connected home for all your stuff. You can use the best services for messaging, documents, and more — and Journal will tie them all together so you stay in control.

For the past few years we’ve seen ourselves, friends, and colleagues stretched thin trying to manage many different silos of information. Journal is the new way forward. It’s a connected home to enhance the way we gather and share knowledge.

So far, beta community members have used Journal to launch new products, prepare for a new baby, remodel a home, write a book, teach a graduate course, plan a vacation, prepare for meetings, and much more.


On the surface, Journal looks and feels simple.

Beneath the surface, the Journal platform has two unique attributes that will enable more flexible and personalized product experiences than we’ve seen from existing knowledge management services:

1. A state-of-the-art machine learning and natural language processing model that conceptually understands people’s digital information across formats
    
2. An architecture and UX that understands and shows information as distinct types (e.g. files, tasks, articles, messages, products, and more)

Today, these attributes mean less friction for people interacting with their information in Journal. You organize links, emails, and other types of information without losing visual context, find anything easily across the apps you integrate, and see relevant items automatically grouped alongside your contacts and events. They are also the building blocks to make Journal the connected home for people to gather their thoughts, get organized, discover and share knowledge. We will use them to empower people to harness their information rather than to be burdened by it.

In the future, Journal will change depending on where you are and what you’re doing. When you check your phone from bed, it may look like a blank pad to dump thoughts. When you’re assigned a task at work it could become a list of suggested resources for you and your team. On the weekend, it may just show a map of nearby bakeries and long-form articles recommended by friends — it will help you do more with your information no matter the shape it takes.

We are so grateful to the nearly 2,000 beta users from our Machine Learnings and Noteworthy communities whose feedback has helped shape our product. In recent weeks we’ve observed an inflection point in deepening engagement, retention, and enthusiastic user feedback — So, starting tomorrow, we’re going to share Journal for Mac, our Web app, and our Chrome extension beyond our own communities. Our iOS app will follow in the coming weeks.

It’s been a hell of a challenge building Journal so far, and we have a lot of work ahead of us. We’ll only be able to make our vision for Journal a reality with the contributions of passionate, smart teammates and a supportive community. If you’re a distributed systems or machine learning engineer interested in building the future of knowledge management, please say hello. If you’d like early access to Journal, add your name to our waitlist >.

We would love for you to come a long for the ride.

Samiur Rahman
CEO, Co-founder
Journal