3 ms·

Google is improving searches by using BERT and understanding language context

• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• nailer 7y ago
  > In one example Google discussed at a briefing with journalists yesterday, its search algorithm was able to parse the meaning of the following phrase: “Can you get medicine for someone pharmacy?” Does that phrase have meaning?
  • haggy 7y ago
    It's not correct grammar but it has meaning. "Can I pick up medicine for someone else at the pharmacy?" is a proper way to ask but that's not how a lot of people end up searching (with correct grammar)
  • Spivak 7y ago
    Yes! This is a super common search pattern for me that works really well even before the change. <query> [context words] usually returns better results than without the context.
• rkagerer 7y ago
  The way BERT recognizes that it should pay attention to those words is basically by self-learning on a titanic game of Mad Libs. Google takes a corpus of English sentences and randomly removes 15 percent of the words, then BERT is set to the task of figuring out what those words ought to be. Over time, that kind of training turns out to be remarkably effective at making a NLP model “understand” context Great example of "explain it to your grandpa" ability.