An environment controlled by bots

The paradigm shift, of visualising a people space instead of a conventional database, would completely remove all problems associated with information volatility because there would be no information to change. Instead, there would just be a framework of designated areas where people meet . When information needs change, people simply move their presence (their bots) to different areas in the space where their new information needs can be met. For example, if interest changes from skirts to dresses, people would simply move their presence from the areas where skirts are being discussed to the areas where people are discussing dresses.

In the context of an Internet environment, where a person's presence would be in the form of a personal electronic agent. The bot can be given the ability to carry out simple tasks, such as:

Visit a specified meeting area

Move from one area to another

Make duplicates of itself to go into multiple areas

Bring other bots back to their owners computer

Connect the owner to any facilities offered at the meeting place

Create new topical meeting places

The server side database function would be minimal: simply to register the names of the meeting places and the current locational presence of the bots as they choose to move between different areas of interest. These locational changes would be instigated by the people who own the bots: the database simply recording their current choices.

How would these bots communicate with each other? They wouldn't. They'd simply carry enough information for their owners to do the communicating should they choose to do so.

Keeping up with trends and fashion

It is probably easier to visualise this not as a conventional database, but, as a formatted space of initially empty areas. When a new topic of interest emerges, anyone can spontaneously label a new empty area with the name of that new topic. Anyone else interested in the new topic can then move their bot presence into that area so as to be in contact with others interested in discussing it.

In this way, the overall people space would see new areas of interest continuously coming into existence, as and when fashion changes or new trends emerge. People – represented by their bots – will move between these areas according to their changing interests: leaving one area to go to another. In this way, it wouldn't matter how dynamic or changeable the information base is, the conceptual framework would simply reflect a population of people moving around to different areas within a formatted space.

Any large city can be viewed as a formatted space, where trendy meeting places suddenly and unpredictably become popular. This view would see movements of people as they split up or moved on mass and for no apparent reason from one venue to another. The only certain way to keep track of the movements of any particular group would be to be part of that group: so as to be able to move with it when it moves on.

It is the essence of this dynamic scenario that needs to be created: to ensure that people can find out where the current action is that they are interested in. The information is irrelevant to the organisational infrastructure. The most important issue is that people can arrange for themselves to be in the right place at the right time.