Looking for Unique Answers? Look No Further Than Wolfram Alpha
Stan Gibson | Date: 07-03-09 | Comments: 2
- Inventor Stephen Wolfram tells how his computational knowledge engine will further human understanding by bringing together information from various sources to provide comparisons and foster new insights.
The Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine is the
latest link in the chain of computing history that started some 4,000 years ago
with the invention of written language and the abstraction of counting objects
with numbers—mathematics. So claimed Stephen Wolfram, the mastermind behind Wolfram
Alpha, in a speech given June
15, 2009, in Munich, Germany.
Wolfram
Alpha, which
debuted in May 2009, answers natural
language questions by bringing together information from various sources to
provide comparisons and foster new insights. The goal of Wolfram Alpha is to “map
small, sloppily written questions onto the universe of knowledge,” said the
inventor.
One of many
historical precursors cited by Wolfram in his remarks, Gottfried von Liebniz,
similarly sought to invent a universal symbolic language that could apply to
everything, particularly knowledge stored in libraries.
Unlike some
fields of study, such as artificial intelligence, Wolfram Alpha is not intended
to mimic human reasoning, but to apply computing power to existing information to
generate new factual correlations. Most questions are unique and have never been
asked before. So the answers are unique also, Wolfram said.
Although
the project is a long-term endeavor, and is now still in its early stages,
Wolfram said it has already captured the information found in a typical
reference library. As to what Wolfram Alpha will become and what its role in
life and business might be, Wolfram said, “The purposes evolve as the
technology evolves. We can’t foresee all the purposes. There’s much that’s
possible, but what we choose to do depends on the thread of our history.”
