Your Memory is the Next Frontier in AI

Soon, you will remember everything (whether you like it or not).

In ten years, I doubt you’ll forget anything. Your memories – every lunch with friends, every trip to the grocery store, every argument – will be digitized and searchable.

If that sounds frightening or dystopian, like something out of a Black Mirror episode, that’s because it is:

Black Mirror Season 1, Episode 3 “The Entire History of You”

But it's also such an obvious application of AI to a major consumer pain point that it's probably inevitable.

Like many people, you might think you have a weak memory. But your memory is probably fine – you just struggle to remember without the right prompts.

If I ask you what you ate for lunch last week, you might draw a blank. But if I ask you “did you have a slice of mushroom pizza from Ceres?” you’d know instantly. (Also, you should definitely try the mushroom pizza from Ceres).

Psychologist Lionel Standing studied this recall-versus-recognition gap in his famous 1973 experiment. Researchers showed students hundreds or even thousands of images – an apple, a broom, a chipmunk – on cards, flashed one after another in quick succession.

Later, when asked to freely recall the images (just list or describe what they saw), the students’ results were abysmal. They could barely describe any cards they had seen.

But when given a recognition test – shown pairs of images and asked “Which one did you see earlier?” – their accuracy jumped to 90–95%, even after viewing thousands of pictures.

In other words, the memories were stored in their brains; they just needed a cue to retrieve them.

This explains why photos are such powerful memory aids. It’s also why we’re obsessed with taking so many pictures. We know a photo can instantly transport us back to a moment we’d otherwise forget. Just scrolling through your camera roll can flood you with memories you’d otherwise never recall.

Even without sci-fi implants, AI can already start backfilling your memory using your existing digital breadcrumbs. Given access to your photos, calendar, location data, texts, emails, social media, and credit card transactions (plus a lot of compute power), AI could reconstruct huge swaths of your life from the past decade. It might remind you that you went to see Hamilton on March 3, 2016 – and that you were 30 minutes late, got caught in the rain, and ran into Jonah Hill after.

Looking ahead, the remaining gaps will likely be filled by some wearable device – a ring or glasses that capture everything happening in real life, including in-person conversations and maybe even stray thoughts.

As someone unusually obsessed with privacy, I’m terrified about this future.

But I’m also eager to see thoughtful founders explore this space. The potential to augment human memory is enormous, so I’m hopeful we can find the right company to back – ideally, someone who truly understands how sensitive this trove of personal data will be and treats that responsibility with proper respect.