What if you could share more of what you mean?
The picture in your head. The example that makes it click. The backstory behind “you know what I mean.” Imagine getting more of the picture at once, instead of unpacking it one sentence at a time.
The connections, examples, context, and qualifications that make an idea mean what it does to you.
What would help you build your own picture of mine?
It started with Diaspora.
Greg Egan imagines software people with a communication channel called Gestalt. An image can arrive with symbols, identity, and layers of information woven into it. An asteroid comes with information about its composition, mass, spin, and orbit.
The channel makes a richer picture available. His young citizen still has to learn what some of it means.
Humans work with words, drawings, sound, video, and all the other ways we explain things. Could AI help connect those pieces—and help each person find a way into the meaning?
A few words can carry a whole backstory.
Imagine two friends planning their usual Saturday breakfast. One says “same as last time?” The other already pictures the café, the table by the window, and the walk afterward.
Someone new hears the same words and needs the story. What makes the phrase useful is the understanding behind it.
“Same as last time?”
the place · the plan · why they like it
Last time doing what?
Your meaning.
My way into it.
Something we can explore together.
AI would work as an intermediary. It could help you express the picture behind your rough notes, sketches, stories, or examples, then help me encounter that picture through something I already understand.
We could look at different explanations of the same account, ask questions, and correct what missed. A question from me might reveal a connection you had never needed to spell out.
Our questions and corrections can change the shared account, and either person can bring the next idea.
Next time, there is already
a little more to build on.
Your personal space could hold the examples, references, and connections that help things click for you. You choose what AI can use. You can start a conversation with just a question.
A shared space would hold what you bring to one another: original material, the account taking shape, questions still open, and references that acquire meaning together. Invite someone in, leave, and return to the conversation.
Your own backstory
Useful personal context, editable by you. Using it to find a familiar explanation is a separate choice from sharing it with someone else.
The backstory you build together
Selected contributions and connected meaning, with room for different perspectives. Understanding each other can leave the disagreement intact.
Eventually, a few words might bring the picture back.
As we explore an idea together, a short phrase could become a familiar way back to the connections we have built. Someone new would still need the backstory.
The picture behind a few wordsOpen the backstory
The explanations we worked through, the examples that helped, the questions we asked, and what we changed could stay connected.
We could open that backstory again, add to it, or share selected parts with someone new.
The ambition is more useful understanding with less unnecessary explaining. People would remain able to inspect, question, and change the account—and decide what they believe. Understanding someone’s account still leaves its evidence and open questions to examine.
What would you want
someone to really get?
SharedShape is an exploration of what this could become. If it brings an idea, question, or unusual use to mind, we’d like to hear it.
[email protected]Explore a working example.
We created a prepopulated walkthrough of a hypothetical conversation between a baker and a software developer about baking bread. It shows one possible manifestation of the idea. The conversation and AI suggestions are prepared; it is an early example we are still refining.
Explore the prepared walkthrough