It's explicitly designed to work outside that single sphere:

Memex seeks to develop software that advances online search capabilities far beyond the current state of the art. The goal is to invent better methods for interacting with and sharing information, so users can quickly and thoroughly organize and search subsets of information relevant to their individual interests....

Memex would ultimately apply to any public domain content; initially, DARPA plans to develop Memex to address a key Defense Department mission: fighting human trafficking.

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/I2O/Programs/Memex.aspx

No, DARPA plans to expand Memex so it works outside that single sphere. I'm not reading anything that suggests it's designed to work outside that sphere.

But we could go back and forth on the distinction between "seeks to" and "designed to" all night, so I'll leave it at that. :)

You're both right. The trend with these I2O programs (and other departments) is to design a system of loosely coupled pieces that are tailored to a specific problem domain, in this case human trafficking, and then generalize in the next couple years later. By the third or fourth year you could expect to see multiple engagements with corporate industry and Gov't/DOD/LE/etc to appl these tools to their data, and thus generalize and polish the final product. The end goal is adoption of the technology and successful transition to some partner. The good programs tend to run for 3-4 years if they can justify their existence to the DARPA leadership. This is also roughly the tenure of a program manager, although a program manager may have more than one program going at a time.

I agree, but it is worth noting that DARPA isn't known for their lack of ambition, nor for their lack of long term commitment. If they "seek to do" something that generally means that is what they are aiming for.