PARC to build NLP Search Engine

The Palo Alto Research Center (of Xerox fame) has licensed its sophisticated natural language processing technology to a start-up hoping to develop an NLP-powered search engine.

The start-up, called Powerset, intends to create a system where users search for data by entering plain-language queries, rather than using keywords. Similar efforts have been launched by MIT and others to solve the problems of automated response generation. With decades of research and significant resources behind them, Powerset hopes to foster the third generation of search engines, following in the footsteps of AltaVista and Google.

Wild about Wildcards

The C|Net News Google Blog entry explaining the use of wildcards in Google searches gave me a great idea for another small project.

'Fill in the blank' type questions can easily be converted into a wildcard search. A carefully constructed intermediary process could be used to tap the vast resources of the Google databases to provide real instant answers to straightforward questions. Once I release the initial version of my new semantic analysis engine, I will code up a PHP page that takes user input in the form of a simple English question ("What is the capital of Delaware?"), convert it into an appropriate Google wildcard query (the capital of Delaware is *), capture the output from Google and reformat that output in the form of an answer to the original question. The answers won't be 100% accurate, but it should be a bit more realistic than other attempts at natural language question answering.

Better Off Without the Butterfly

Despite its questionable track-record of innovation, many people often assume the coming revolution in Artificial Intelligence will be led by Microsoft.

Although MS has devoted significant resources to this cause, my utter lack of faith was recently amplified by this banner ad for MSN Search. In an attempt to showcase the new 'intelligent' instant answers provided by their search engine, MS has demonstrated new levels of artificial stupidity. A definition of champagne (the bubby alcohol beverage) is not a valid answer for a question seeking to ascertain the location of the Champagne region of France. MS is completely missing the point, and I suspect this trend will continue. I'm betting on another couple of grad students defeating the billion-dollar warchest of Microsoft in this battle as well.

Teaching Computers to Read

While trailing far behind in skills such as long division, the average three year old human is a much better reader than even the most sophisticated computer program. But for how long?

Two professors at RPI are working on software that can read text and answer questions based on the relevant information. They hope to one day develop a system which can analyze and act upon real-time information "by either reading or listening to spoken instructions."

The difference between these guys and me? They've got a sweet grant from DARPA.