Creating a Digital Galaxy

In a world where Google appends AI into every search and ChatGPT is shoehorned into every service, finding information is so much harder.

"But Haley" I hear you ask, using the wiretap I've installed under your desk. "Doesn't AI make finding information easier?"

NO! Idiot! Stupid-head. Stupid doo-doo idiot-head. You're outsourcing the task, which means that you are making it even harder to find and verify information in the future. Information without context isn't useful, and if you can't source information beyond "the machine told me so" you are ruining your own critical thinking.

Here's my solution:

A digital galaxy! Where a digital garden serves to cultivate ideas, a digital galaxy makes travelling through information faster than ever. This is why having it hosted online for the public to gawk at is brilliant- because yeah, you get to read my lil musings and click around the gaff like the skinner-boxed primate you are, but I can get to the information I want faster.

Think about it this way, instead of centralising search around an engine, what if you built your own network of information you know you need? You suddenly have a hyperlinked network of nodes that get you where you need to go without needing to leave a space you can control and edit. When you see something is missing, adding a new page is as fast as publishing it from your notes app.

With all the benefits of digital gardens included, galaxy-style thinking says that everything on the internet can become one with your knowledgebase, but it doesn't have to. Unlike a search engine, where every indexed site can show up, a digital galaxy only have the information you give it.

Understand your tools

We live in a weird time where our tools are more intangible to us than ever. Not even Google knows how it's algorithm works- let alone it's AI. They'll show you the science all they want, but there is no guaranteed way to get the same result over and over again. That can be a benefit to some, but if I pick up a hammer, I want to know it can drive the nail without smashing my thumb with it.

We need user error to learn skills, and unless people can be wrong they'll never be right. LLMs pay a lot of attention to the words you give them, and will happily parrot out whatever biased information it thinks best suits you. These tools have hard limits programmed into them. Since last I checked, you can't search about Tiananmen Square in DeepSeek and it's very hard to get anywhere to tell you how to build a bomb nowadays. Dang!

If a tool could be used to do something, but a company tells us we can't, it's not our tool, is it? A digital galaxy is my tool, designed to be useful to me. May all your tools be yours, and useful to you!