Idle thought which threatens to turn into a project someday:
Is there already a site where you can take a complicated text, paste it in a blank, and:
- Parse the text’s structure and reformat it accordingly,
- highlight key terms,
- build an internal cross-reference,
And other cool things I haven’t thought of?
I kind of want this for opaque legal texts (like contracts, EULAs, laws, etc.) but honestly any complicated document might benefit from this treatment.
Summing up the approach I want here (and which I try to apply in the systems I build):
If there’s something complicated/intricate/difficult even for people, I don’t want the computer to try to DO IT FOR ME.
I want the system to HELP THE HUMAN in the picture.
In the case of this theoretical site, I want a helpful formatter/analyzer to SHORTEN THE DISTANCE BETWEEN ME AND UNDERSTANDING.
There. That’s one of my statements of purpose: build things which shorten that distance.
Steve Bogart 🎵
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