The Search for Intelligent Search

The latest in Tim BrayÂ’s series on search

I think this one is the best yet. Here’s a quote:

“Consider what a really intelligent search engine would have to do. It would have to read an arbitrary selection of documents in an arbitrary selection of dialects and styles, and ascertain what they are about. Then, it would have to look at an arbitrary query, once again in an arbitrary dialect and style, and ascertain what it is about. Then it would have to match the about-nesses of the query against that of the documents and return the right documents.”

“…intelligence in search requires deep processing of human languages, which (many believe) is the single most important defining characteristic of human intelligence.”