A University of Washington computer scientist is calling on the international academic community and engineers to adopt a bolder approach in designing the procedure to search for information online. In a two-page commentary titled 'Search needs a shake-up', published in the journal Nature, professor of computer science and engineering Oren Etzioni called on experts to think outside the box.
Etzioni says the main obstacle to progress “seems to be a curious lack of ambition and imagination…The piece is meant to be provocative.” He said he imagined a future in which someone would ask a question like, “What was the score at today's Mariners game?” or “Where's the nearest restaurant that serves great sushi?” The computer would then find an answer by looking through all the data available on the internet.
It's an ambitious goal. However, last winter's Jeopardy match-up, in which IBM's Watson supercomputer trounced the best human players in the show's history, tested a computer's ability to immediately answer complex questions.
