Content revision 4e771eaf0390cc87b6c7c6fd8469f3508f6ceeec7119472e6c1ccf17e2e1e5d2

## The archive as a space

AI × Self
Source ID aipersonalarchive:seeing-the-archive-as-a-space
Original https://www.henryw.me/#/aipersonalarchive#seeing-the-archive-as-a-space

Once the passages had embeddings, numerical representations of their meaning, I could compare them with one another as well as with a query. That suggested another way to explore the collection. Material filed under research, work, or personal writing could sit together because of what it discussed. I used those relationships to make a map of the archive, giving visitors a way to look around neighbouring ideas even before choosing a particular question. UMAP, a dimensionality-reduction method, arranges these embeddings in two or three dimensions. Every dot represents a passage, and nearby dots carry related meaning. A visitor can add a question to see where it falls within the material already here. A question about how I use AI can draw on several projects. Search locates the relevant passages. Understanding their connections involves reading across those pages.

I developed Ask to bring that material into an answer.