ResourceBlog Article: Smart Computing and Searching

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Wednesday, 27th August 2003

Smart Computing and Searching

Computers
Business Week via CRM Daily
"The Ghost in Your Machine"
From the article, The world of smart computers -- machines that would be familiar with your habits and know when you're stressed or fatigued -- could be only a few years away. The computers would note your mental logic for saving information and follow the same logic in saving files. They would accurately infer your intent, remember past experiences (for instance, that you tend to make errors in multiplication), and alert you to mistakes. Chris Forsythe of Sandia National Labs is interviewed by a Business Week reporter about smart computing. A couple of questions deal specifically with info retrieval.
Q: How are cognitive machines better than the search engines and functions we currently use?
A: The technologies available today are inadequate. There are a lot of days when I can't find a file and I just give up. The search engines today -- such as Google -- offer very generic, word-based searches. They have no understanding of the structure of your life. In contrast, our software develops a model based on what you know about your own work. It structures the knowledge on the computer in the same way you structure it in your brain.
Q: What kinds of data would the program need to look at to do that?
A: Your archived files. The software you use, how you use it. For instance, in e-mail, it's going to look at how you use the actual software -- do you frequently forward e-mails, do you blind-copy people? It's going to look at who you interact with. Then, it's going to look at the content, the body of the e-mail. [You can tell] a great deal [about] what a person knows in the words that they use.
Q: When do you expect the product to be commercialized?
A: We could see some capabilities that could go into product development within the next year -- such as the ability for the computer to sift through your e-mail application. But I think most of the capabilities I talked about are going to be commonplace 10 years from now. The technology is already there. But it will take time to put this kind of application into automobiles, for example -- simply because they have to be tested and proven.

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