  The main purpose of this article is to describe potential benefits and
applications of the SP theory, a unique attempt to simplify and integrate ideas
across artificial intelligence, mainstream computing and human cognition, with
information compression as a unifying theme. The theory, including a concept of
multiple alignment, combines conceptual simplicity with descriptive and
explanatory power in several areas including representation of knowledge,
natural language processing, pattern recognition, several kinds of reasoning,
the storage and retrieval of information, planning and problem solving,
unsupervised learning, information compression, and human perception and
cognition. In the SP machine -- an expression of the SP theory which is
currently realised in the form of computer models -- there is potential for an
overall simplification of computing systems, including software. As a theory
with a broad base of support, the SP theory promises useful insights in many
areas and the integration of structures and functions, both within a given area
and amongst different areas. There are potential benefits in natural language
processing (with potential for the understanding and translation of natural
languages), the need for a versatile intelligence in autonomous robots,
computer vision, intelligent databases, maintaining multiple versions of
documents or web pages, software engineering, criminal investigations, the
management of big data and gaining benefits from it, the semantic web, medical
diagnosis, the detection of computer viruses, the economical transmission of
data, and data fusion. Further development of these ideas would be facilitated
by the creation of a high-parallel, web-based, open-source version of the SP
machine, with a good user interface. This would provide a means for researchers
to explore what can be done with the system and to refine it.
