The Future of Web Search
Part One: What Could The Future Look Like?
By Dr. Eric Glover, Searchme’s Classification Architect. Eric is responsible for the design and implementation of Searchme’s categories feature, a seemingly simple tool that springs from an exciting area of artificial intelligence (AI) research and development.
Imagine the Internet five years from now: As you begin to type a word into a search engine, it seems to know you personally. It naturally gravitates towards your unique interests and preferences. Rarely do you need to type more than one or two words before it shows you exactly what you’re looking for. On the occasional instance when it doesn’t correctly guess your intention, it’s easy to correct and quickly get to what you want.
For example, a student doing research for a school science project sees only science web sites that are appropriate for someone his age. A few hours later, he searches for information on his favorite video game, and he’s able to easily re-focus the engine on reviews and downloadable expansion packs.
By no means am I the first to postulate this future vision where your search engine seems to know you personally. But despite nearly ten years of artificial intelligence (AI) research in this area, we’re still not there. Why?
How do we get from here – a world where most people view search engines as big bookmark replacements – to there – a world where search engines are even more useful for real research and seem to know us personally, demonstrating the flexibility we all dream about? Are we moving in the right direction? Is it possible? Does anyone even care?
At Searchme, we are working to move toward this future and prove that it is possible by demonstrating some of the initial steps to get there. It’s extremely challenging, rewarding and exciting. Over the next few posts, I will go into detail on the real challenges to creating better search, what has already been done, and how we are starting to move into this future.
Next – Part Two: How Search Works Right Now