Quesstimate ... 2009

Off in the distance ...

Google just announced Search Labs, an experimental move against Chat GPT using SGE (Search Generative Experience), Code Tips and Add to Sheets, all driven by AI to leverage the net in ways not envisioned back in 2009. Regarding search, yours truly wrote a piece in 2009 discussing how search could be enhanced but AI was obviously not factored into the equation. Seems the take was not all that bad IMHO.

With AI, these recommendations are already being superseded but that's how science and tech should work as both disciplines are designed to be questioned and modified (think gravity & vacuum tubes) as needs warrant. To this writer, Google's initiative rings true. 

Back in 2009 ... Looking Toward Nirvana

The holy grail of computing (besides renders of 3D high res photorealistic scenes in less than 1/60th of a second) is high-end content served to people and machines tailored to their specific needs, something that is not being done today, AFAIK, by the Google's of the world when one conducts a search. At the present time, when one asks, for example, information on Babe Ruth's 714th home run, one gets thousands of sites/pages that cover the Babe's last exploits, a useful result that, unfortunately, is light years from getting one or two pages filled with the right material keyed to user preferences. Is there a way to do this? I think the answer is yes but questions like the following should be asked to at least get the ball rolling in the right direction.

For starters, why can't you do the following?

1. Conduct searches keyed to individual disciplines equipped with appropriate sub-category items able to be selected individually or combined in designated arrays, thus enabling one to easily build a targeted content set relating to specific area(s) of any given discipline (i.e. architecture/subcategory/renaissance; biology/subcategory/fungi, etc., etc.) at the beginning of the search process. By doing this, the accuracy of the search, in my opinion, would be greatly enhanced.

2. Be able to save the search string in question to eliminate rebuilding the drill-down pattern again when that particular search needs to be redone.

3. Have the ability to date, reorder and rank saved search strings to be used as needs dictate.

Without question, this is doable as this approach to conducting searches definitely works based on personal experience on developing this kind of system. Search results would still exist as sites/pages sets but the accuracy of the search conducted would, as stated before, be greatly enhanced.

Formatting and putting this information into properly formatted pages as described in the first paragraph of this discussion is another matter entirely as it will require sophisticated research into developing state-of-the-art database/semantic-driven environments but this will certainly become reality given the rapid acceleration of compute power and software design as seen by IBM & Intel and Simile. the innovative open-source semantic offering from MIT.

In retrospect, Google's SGE, if it works right, is exactly what I was asking for back in 2009. :)