For a while I've had a vague sci-fi-like idea that the first true "group minds" are going to evolve from the intersection of Mechanical Turk, augmented reality,

For a while I've had a vague sci-fi-like idea that the first true "group minds" are going to evolve from the intersection of Mechanical Turk, augmented reality, personal virtual assistants, and Twitter/Aardvark/Facebook/Ask MetaFilter. Starting over a decade ago, it was possible to instantly "know" anything that was online just by searching for it. With the addition of Google, Wikipedia, search-inside-the-book, and massive amounts of content of all sorts - plus always-on mobile networks - this now means that we now have just about any fact ever published at our fingertips. The number of people connected to the net has grown too, and so have tools for finding and talking to them. Most of us can contact dozens of friends at any given moment, plus friends-of-friends, co-workers, fellow members of communites like Hacker News or MetaFilter, and of course complete strangers. So in addition to raw data, we now have access to vast amounts of human judgement, experience, and research skill. Once only high-powered executives had personal assistants. Now the Tim Ferriss crowd is getting into the game with "virtual assistants" who can work remotely, leverage all the above-mentioned internet superpowers, spread costs by serving many masters, and work off-shore wherever the cost-benefit ratio is right for a given job. Their services are still targeted at busy freelancers and business owners, but I'm sure someone will soon start selling virtual assistants to all sorts of information workers, teachers, programmers, and even stay-at-home parents. So how long before I can simply touch a button to allow a remote assistant to see what I'm seeing in real-time and help with planning transportation, translating foreign text, taking notes, searching for relevant emails, and even advising me on what to say? Some jobs will just go to legions of cheap generic workers, some to my circle of friends or colleagues, and others to a personal assistant who is paid well to know my needs and background. And that assistant will then sub-contract out portions of each job as needed to computer programs, unskilled Turkers, or to his or her own network of friends and assistants. At that point, it's like I'm carrying around a whole network of brains ready to engage with any situation I face.