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Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces

unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com

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Re: Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces

#31

Post by eggnet »

sp332 wrote: post #22
encoderer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is unfortunate, because a more modest man could create a great tool like Alpha but then assume that he didn't know all of the ways that people would use it, and therefore not require interfacing with it through a broken natural language engine. Wolfram, on the other hand (like many bright people) assumes that only he knows the answers and doesn't bother to think that others might be able to do more with the too…

Steve Jobs only succeeded because he could really pitch his ideas. He could make people want his product ("reality distortion field"). Wolfram doesn't have that kind of charisma.

It's not like Steve can sell anything under the sun. Look at Apple TV or NeXT (though, he did get apple to buy that). MobileMe isn't particularly popular either though it hasn't fallen flat.

The only way to save wolfram alpha is to improve it. It is currently not a marketable product to the massive audience it is intended.

Re: Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces

#32

Post by johnnybgoode »

blasdel wrote: post #19
briguy44 wrote: post #2

Summary to looooooooong article. Author feels that Wolfram should have an alternative direct interface that does not required AI to interpret the meaning/goal of your natural language text query. Kind of like how Grafiti did for the Palm.

Hey, it's only 4000 words on a single subject -- his usual style is to write a series of ten 40,000 word posts using self-invented neologisms about how the media & bureaucrats really control our democracy and advocating for its replacement with Jacobite neo-cameralism.

Just to clarify, blasdel didn't make that up. That really is his usual style.

Re: Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces

#33

Post by ori_b »

iamwil wrote: post #25
scott_s wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author's point is that the users know they want, say, NBA stats, or price comparisons, so they should be able to ask for those.

Right. That much I got. The part about "non-solution to a non-problem" refers how the author thought that not only is the interface a non-solution, but that having datasets and visualizations would be useless to lay people (a non-problem). I was asking the question whether it's really a non-problem. I figured that a nutritional label is a bad example, and that if WA had sports stats or product comparison data, the la…

I gathered that the "non-problem" that was being discussed was the need for natural language input, not the actual visualization.
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