Boxes And Arrows : The Design Behind the Design

Article Idea:

Applying Turing's Ideas to Search

suggested by John Ferrara on 2007/06/30

Alan Turing’s famous test of artificial intelligence describes the ideal state of freeform human-computer interaction. People hold website search to a Turing-level standard, expecting it to understand their queries as well as a human being would.

This article will draw on the past and look toward the future to explain how this insight carries practical implications for the design of search systems. In particular, it will look at the roles of query processing and user input in the success of search. I’ll describe why query suggestion functions border on the revolutionary, and conclude on how a computer will ultimately become self-aware and wage war on humankind.

Wait, no, I believe that was “Terminator”… you know what, I still have to think through the conclusion.