Hunch engine, intuitional software
Several software companies are working on a new type of software, the hunch engine, that can be used to enhance human intuition. Abstractly, the user is presented with a starting point, the seed, and a set of mutations. When the user selects the mutation that looks good, a new set of mutations is generated from which he can select again, and again, and so on until the desired mutation is found. The idea behind it is what Supreme Court Justice Potter Steward called the "obscenity principle", the user may not know what they are looking for, but they will know when they see it. Others call the process guided natural selection.
Such software can have a wide range of applications. Eric Bonabeau, founder of Icosystem, demonstrated at the O’Reilly conference in San Diego last week how the hunch engine can be used to improve digital images by picking from mutations, without any understanding of programs like Photoshop. It has also been used in France to optimize postal routes to allow more intangible benefits while still fulfilling management’s requirements. Meanwhile, Coalesix is gearing the engine towards drug discovery. Their software, called Mobius, allows pharmaceutical chemists to examine 12 molecules (mutations) at a time, from which they pick the ones that look promising, which then recombine into 12 more that are hopefully closer to the drug they are searching for.
What gives the hunch engine an edge over traditional software, is that it can provide a result that the user could not predict. As Dave Weindberger, author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined, pointed out, we design many things, but our hunches are usually predictable and repetitive, mutation can take us in new unforeseen directions.
Software Helps Develop Hunches, Wired.com
‘Hunch engine’ sharpens up your half-baked ideas, NewScientist.com ($)