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Are you suggesting that there is a distinction between "searches people want to do" and "results they want to find" (besides the purely functional one of search

by defen 12y ago

Are you suggesting that there is a distinction between "searches people want to do" and "results they want to find" (besides the purely functional one of search -> result). e.g. there are search results people want, even though they don't know they want them? Unknown unknowns that people will retrospectively be grateful for?

VLM 12y ago
I'm guessing the work flow would be something like "I want intermittent rotation" except probably not expressed as literately. Maybe a sketch or a lot of babble along those terms gets searched on, whatever input format. If it works, maybe you find a Geneva mechanism. If you have enough domain experience to search for "continuous rotation rotary intermittent rotary" then you'll find it, but if you are mechanically illiterate you may not know what intermittent means or rotary... maybe. It would be a truly amazing display of AI to be given a really poor sketch of a Geneva mechanism, it'll find a really nice blueprint. I'd be impressed if this found the hypoid gear in a differential. I'd be more impressed if someone who doesn't understand the concept or reason for a torsen differential was able to none the less search it. As a concrete example theres a pretty impressive lego torsen(-ish) diff out there. Its easy to find if you google for the terms. I'd be impressed if you could give a sketch to a search engine and find this lego diff.
- graycat 12y ago
  I'm not trying to compete with Google/Bing where their work with keywords/phrases, page rank popularity, and, say, date, work well. And for a huge pile of Internet content, search, and results, they do work well. For the searches you mention, I believe that maybe for one of them it could be possible to improve on Google/Bing, but I don't believe that real AI would be needed. For describing how to build such a search engine, that might take more than the 10,000 character limit on HN posts!
graycat 12y ago
Yes, there can be some differences. E.g., a user might search for something that does not exist. So, they can do the search, that is, attempt, but not find the results. Or, there's a lot of content on the Internet; a lot of it, a lot of people want; to get it they want to do searches that promise to be able to find that content. Nothing more obscure than that.

by defen 12y ago

VLM 12y ago

I'm guessing the work flow would be something like "I want intermittent rotation" except probably not expressed as literately. Maybe a sketch or a lot of babble along those terms gets searched on, whatever input format. If it works, maybe you find a Geneva mechanism. If you have enough domain experience to search for "continuous rotation rotary intermittent rotary" then you'll find it, but if you are mechanically illiterate you may not know what intermittent means or rotary... maybe. It would be a truly amazing display of AI to be given a really poor sketch of a Geneva mechanism, it'll find a really nice blueprint. I'd be impressed if this found the hypoid gear in a differential. I'd be more impressed if someone who doesn't understand the concept or reason for a torsen differential was able to none the less search it. As a concrete example theres a pretty impressive lego torsen(-ish) diff out there. Its easy to find if you google for the terms. I'd be impressed if you could give a sketch to a search engine and find this lego diff.

graycat 12y ago
I'm not trying to compete with Google/Bing where their work with keywords/phrases, page rank popularity, and, say, date, work well. And for a huge pile of Internet content, search, and results, they do work well. For the searches you mention, I believe that maybe for one of them it could be possible to improve on Google/Bing, but I don't believe that real AI would be needed. For describing how to build such a search engine, that might take more than the 10,000 character limit on HN posts!

graycat 12y ago

Yes, there can be some differences. E.g., a user might search for something that does not exist. So, they can do the search, that is, attempt, but not find the results. Or, there's a lot of content on the Internet; a lot of it, a lot of people want; to get it they want to do searches that promise to be able to find that content. Nothing more obscure than that.