I’m a big fan of Google. I think the possibilities of organizing and restructuring all the information the human race has ever created with a powerful network of computers is within reach. We are just starting to understand and explore the ways we can tap into this goldmine. Google is doing a great job and their pioneer projects excite me.
Did you notice that for example if you just type in 100 Fahrenheit Google will give you the same temperature in Celsius? Similarly 100 Feet or even 2+2^2, will all give you answers that are not just search results. Imagine the day when Google will be so intelligent, that it will be able to extract and combine useful information from thousands of web sites and give you intelligent answers to questions, such as ‘How to remove chewing gum from my T-shirt?’
If you look at Google sets for example, you can see how Google can make sense of a list you type in and expand it for you intelligently. If you punch in Macintosh, Windows, Linux it will give you a list of other operating systems.
I think linguists should dig deeper into this untapped opportunity Google lays out for them. I think they should start writing applications that will make Google smarter.
The now historic jelly-beans-in-the-jar experiment showed invariably that a group estimate is superior to the vast majority of individual guesses on a consistent basis.
With more websites, and more powerful computers the future looks bright.
Hopefully, one day we will be able to ask Google: ‘How to save the whales?’ or other important issues like ‘What the hell women want?’ 🙂
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