Programmable attention

Michael Nielsen has suggested that the review sessions of a Spaced repetition memory system don’t just help you remember things: it orchestrates your repeated attention over time across hundreds of tiny tasks, too many to manage by hand. Systems like these are a form of programmable attention.

More generally, environments can be designed to modify their occupants attention by e.g. lowering executive overhead, mitigating unhelpful habits or biases, orchestrating the attention of multiple people in concert, distributing known-good attentional strategies, etc. You use simpler forms of programmable attention all the time: inboxes with snooze and alarm features; bots which remind you of things; Twitter is a kind of programmable attention. What is the core properties of such systems? What is their potential reach?

Such systems are often focused on productivity, but I believe they can be used to support creative work—reading, thinking, expressing, problem-solving.

For more, seen specifically through the lens of spaced repetition: Spaced repetition systems can be used to program attention

This term is evocative, but it has unfortunate connotations of roboticism and alienation. I think I’ll ultimately want to find another.

  • computer-supported attention? computer-augmented attention? (vague)
  • attention playbooks (too static in implication)
  • cybernetic attention (slightly more accurate, maybe, but also with unpleasant connotations)
  • Michael has also suggested “designed attention” / “designer attention” and (2022-11-15) “algorithmic attention.”
    • I like that “designer attention” evokes “designer drugs”—altered states of consciousness, superpowers—in addition to implying a wide possibility space for inventing arrangements of attention.
    • “Algorithmic attention” places emphasis on the authored arrangement of the attention—the attention algorithm. Relative to other terms, “algorithm” also imples a more hands-off relationship, and perhaps opacity.

Maybe it’s better to focus on finding great terms for specific instantiations of programmable attention—e.g. “coordinated attention” for ideas around collective intelligence, etc.

References

The concept and term come from Michael Nielsen, in conversations from ~2018—I’ve forgotten the details, unfortunately.

Correspondence with Igor Dvorkin, 2020-05-12

Coaching is paying someone to program your attention

Last updated 2023-09-01.

Spaced repetition systems can be used to program attention

Spaced repetition memory systems make memory a choice, but the computerized component’s value lies specifically in dynamically scheduling and selecting questions to be reviewed. In some sense, the efficacy of a Spaced repetition memory system comes from its power to program your attention (Programmable attention). Think: “{cron} for your mind.”

Manually making decisions about which cards to review would be far too taxing on a per-card basis. The transaction cost is too high. When that work is mostly outsourced, you can make a coarser decision—to devote your attention to SRS practice for 10 minutes—and then let your attention be directed by the machine within that block.

Systematically, we can generalize spaced repetition to:

  • a priority queue of microtasks
    • (for memory tasks, in SM-2: a simple due date)
  • an interactive environment which presents sufficiently high-priority tasks
    • (for memory tasks, a flashcard UI which shows “due” cards)
  • feedback actions which modify a task’s subsequent priority
    • (for memory tasks, forgotten / remember modify the next due interval)

Within a traditional flashcard-style system, you can use this observation to go far beyond memorization: see Spaced repetition memory systems can be used to prompt application, synthesis, and creation and Spaced repetition may be a helpful tool to develop or change habits. Spaced repetition prompt design is about designing tasks for your future self.

But the core concept—automatically arranging and presenting tasks according to some expanding schedule—can be instantiated in many interfaces and domains. I call this notion Spaced everything.

As a pianist, I have a huge number of technical exercises that I maintain: e.g. scales, argpeggios, and patterns played in variations across each key. I only want to work on exercises for 20-30 minutes a day. Which ones should I do? You can imagine a system which:

  • keeps track of each exercise, including axes of variation (blocked, arpeggiated; keys; modes)
    • priority is a function of both recency and the previous maximum tempo I achieved, relative to my target tempo
  • presents a prioritized queue of 20-30 minutes worth of exercises
    • perhaps the exercise durations are estimated by measuring my practice
    • perhaps it can be configured to present at most 5 variations of any single exercise, to ensure breadth
  • solicits feedback from me in terms of a subjective rating and/or a maximum tempo marking

It’s interesting to imagine a single interface malleable enough that I could define my piano exercises above as one sort of routine, and a SRS memory system as another routine—both special cases of a single general primitive.

Some examples:

Related:

References

Matuschak, A. (2019, December). Taking knowledge work seriously. Presented at the Stripe Convergence, San Francisco.

Related

Evergreen note maintenance approximates spaced repetition

Triage strategies for maintaining inboxes (e.g. Inbox Zero) are often too brittle, vs. using spaced-repetition to “approximate” inbox grooming.

I use this concept to engage with my implementation of A reading inbox to capture possibly-useful references

Last updated 2023-07-13.