Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
blog.wolfram.com
Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
1–10 of 39 posts
Re: Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
#2I wonder if this is actually going to work, or if it's going to be like every other failed attempt at this kind of thing - ie amusing at first but far too limited to be genuinely useful.
Re: Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
#3Sounds like a sequel to the Cyc project, but with more resources being thrown at it
Re: Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
#4I wonder if this is actually going to work, or if it's going to be like every other failed attempt at this kind of thing - ie amusing at first but far too limited to be genuinely useful.
the difference in approach is outlined in the following paragraphs:
"But what about all the actual knowledge that we as humans have accumulated? A lot of it is now on the web—in billions of pages of text. And with search engines, we can very efficiently search for specific terms and phrases in that text. But we can’t compute from that. And in effect, we can only answer questions that have been literally asked before. We can look things up, but we can’t figure anything new out. So how can we deal with that? Well, some people have thought the way forward must be to somehow automatically understand the natural language that exists on the web. Perhaps getting the web semantically tagged to make that easier. But armed with Mathematica and NKS I realized there’s another way: explicitly implement methods and models, as algorithms, and explicitly curate all data so that it is immediately computable."
(eg, the crucial formula is algorithms to compute further information from curated, trusted data)
Re: Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
#5I wish he provided more technical detail as to what differentiates this from every other attempt at exposing a general learning algorithm + NLP to the web.
Beside the Wolfram brand-name, there's little reason to elevate this above 'curiosity I'll watch out of the corner of my eye' status.
Re: Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
#6Is Wolfram the new Xerox Parc?
Re: Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
#7I wonder if this is actually going to work, or if it's going to be like every other failed attempt at this kind of thing - ie amusing at first but far too limited to be genuinely useful.
the difference in approach is outlined in the following paragraphs: "But what about all the actual knowledge that we as humans have accumulated? A lot of it is now on the web—in billions of pages of text. And with search engines, we can very efficiently search for specific terms and phrases in that text. But we can’t compute from that. And in effect, we can only answer questions that have been literally asked before.…
so he scripted google and fed it all into a learning algorithm?
Re: Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
#8Sounds hype-ish, and loose on details... why are they doing this on their own, not publishing it in peer-reviewed journals?
Re: Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
the difference in approach is outlined in the following paragraphs: "But what about all the actual knowledge that we as humans have accumulated? A lot of it is now on the web—in billions of pages of text. And with search engines, we can very efficiently search for specific terms and phrases in that text. But we can’t compute from that. And in effect, we can only answer questions that have been literally asked before.…
so he scripted google and fed it all into a learning algorithm?
what is meant by curated data is the opposite of what google does, eg
http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/guide/NewIn70Comput...
(google has pretty much admitted it does a horrible job with structured information...)
Re: Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming
#10Exited and interesting approach. Adding more schematic will help such a system so it's working with time. Also seems to have the right kind of mad scientists.