The effort is the brainchild of machine learning expert Will Ferguson, who suggested he could help “scale up” the kind of work that IF does. He and IF Fellow Adolf Gundersen have been working full time on the project, with substantial help from IF Fellow Shannnon Wheatley Hartman. Ferguson has already assembled a team of highly skilled technology experts and others with complementary skills and knowledge. Among them is Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia.
Ferguson and Gundersen’s ultimate vision is to develop, through repeated experimentation, a platform that—in addition to facilitated discussion–will incorporate reliable information links and feedback loops to enable continued refinement.
No decisions have been made as to whether full-scale development of USATalk will rely on crowd sourcing or philanthropic contributions.
A companion article, on the Des Moines Schools Community Discussion Project, describes USATalk’s first experimental effort.