Casey Newton from The Verge has an interesting ‘state of note-taking apps’ article. Prompted by the arrival of generative AI, he looks back at his use of note-taking apps and ponder the use of actually thinking with them.
the arrival of generative artificial intelligence could make the tools we use more powerful than ever — or they could turn out to be just another mirage.
Source: Why note-taking apps don’t make us smarter – The Verge
Memory vs insight
I’m an inveterate note-taker.
I’ve been a daily user of Evernote for something like 15 years. And even before that, I had some sort of database or collection of digital notes of some sort.
I wouldn’t say I use Evernote for great insights, since, as Casey points out, note-taking apps are not really geared for that. I do use it as an outboard memory, saving snippets of things I later search for.
I also use it as my lab notebook, for all my maker projects (and perhaps some other projects I want to capture process for). Tho, a few months (and projects) had passed before I realized I should be documenting my work like I did on paper as a grad student and post-doc.
AI?
Evernote has added some sort of AI summarization feature, which I have still to try out. I suppose I am not so much interested in a summary of a single note, but perhaps a summary of multiple notes.
Tho, as Casey points out, while wishing for something similar, the nature of AI summaries these days leaves much to be desired.
In the end, Casey realizes that expecting a piece of software to do the thinking for you is the wrong path to try. “Thinking takes place in your brain,” he says. And “it is a process that stubbornly resists automation.”
Indeed.
Tool use
He then refers to Andy Matuschak, a thinking on notes and note-taking:
“The goal is not to take notes — the goal is to think effectively,” Matuschak writes. “Better questions are ‘what practices can help me reliably develop insights over time?’ [and] ‘how can I shepherd my attention effectively?’”
Source: Why note-taking apps don’t make us smarter – The Verge
In a way, that’s how I approach any tool – how does a particular tool fit into the habits I have to achieve something? In the case of notes, I am constantly evaluating the value of Evernote and other options for how I collect, save, navigate, and recombine my morsels of information (heck, Evernote is quite good at screwing things up and forcing all their users to question Evernote’s value, haha).
Right now, after so long using Evernote, I have a way that works for me. And there are only a few tweaks I’d do to Evernote to better fit how I use it (alas, many are features that were lost – say, support for GIFs, or modern document and card scanning).
Future?
What would I want AI to do in Evernote?
Not sure. Of course, some sort of overlay to organize info and find connections, rather than a co-writer, would be useful (maybe like the nascent NotebookLM Google?).
I really don’t want it to try to be smarter or as smart as me.
BASAAP is always much better for an assistive digital tool.
Let’s start there.
