|
Google and Artificial Intelligence |
This column does not have a single author, but is submitted by a number of experts that contribute regularly to our news source. Some are in Canada, some in the UK and one is in the far east INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY
|
|||
|
|
||||
|
What has crept up on us with the Google era? Answer: Data Mining! Some years ago, we got used to our browser's ability to remember favorites to fill in the blanks when we start to type, but now things are far more sophisticated. Bring up Google and you'll see what we mean. Start typing in search words. For example, if you type in Delta, you'll see a drop down list of choices that include Delta Airlines, Delta Faucets, Delta Chelsea Toronto .... (these change all the time) How are these chosen? It's called 'Statistical Data Mining'. It's quite a complicated algorithm. There are about 3 Billion Google searches per DAY for them to look at and use. The software keeps track of what people are searching for second by second. In the case of the word 'Delta', Google is trying to help you by giving you a bunch of prompts that include Delta Airlines, Delta Faucets and Delta Chesley in Toronto. It is not by world demand that it tosses in a hotel in Toronto. It is by where you are, even though Delta Hotels are a big chain. You are given the Toronto Hotel because Google knows that you are living someplace in Ontario and they have had people in the past from the region who have searched for a Delta Hotel in Toronto. It's not a trivial thing to do all this for the millions of users per day, but that's the beauty of Google. They do it in the blink of an eye too!
|
Recently The Perimeter Institute in Waterloo hosted a panel discussion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) The panel included a group of 'futurists/scientists' and a science fiction writer. AI is an old dream and it is galloping forward with surprising results. In 1997 Deep Blue defeated Grand Master Gary Kasparov handily. Today such a program will run on your PC and is 100 times better. This is not what we mean by AI, however. What Google is doing is inching closer to what we mean by AI. Originally, the Turing Test was deemed to be the benchmark for AI, but maybe this is a test that an AI machine can almost handle now and we have to go further. The panel discussed the nuances of human discourse in which two people talking to each other work on multiple planes .... A asks B a question and looks for body language to lead into the next question or A's own body language is altered by B's reponse .. e.g. the raised eyebrow. A is listening to B, but is also monitoring a conversation at a nearby table ... all those human things. Google's Data Mining is not too far away is it? They are monitoring 3 Billion dialogs per day after all. They are seeing our frustration as we try to refine our questions. Our next poke helps determine our pleasure or displeasure. If the camera was on, they could see where are eyes are looking. Do we see that ad? We are now in the Cyborg Age like it or not. Don't be fooled. You don't have to have an implant to be a Cyborg. The Internet and Google are extending our brains and in many ways we are attached in a tremendous network. Look at kids in a Mall and their phones. We as humans have extended ourselves and 'created' a new form of intelligence. Since AI can be self replicating and self extending, this has galactic implications. We are moving rapidly to the SINGULARITY.
|
|||
|
 for
world news,
books, sports, movies ...Sunday, October 25, 2009 |
|||
