What does Google actually do: take 2
Preface: my previous post on this topic fell into junk - on the habr, alas, there is no longer a “links” section, and even a partial copy-paste in the form of a seed with a link to the original text is prohibited by the rules. Nevertheless, I consider the event to have happened to be very important, so I risk again taking this text for discussion. To stay within the rules, I will try to retell the main text in my own words.
So, from the middle of last December Google’s famous inventor and futurologist Ray Kurzweil started working at Google. As Oleg Paramonov writes in his article (and this is the main text I wanted to refer to), this event is out of the ordinary and, I’m not afraid of this word, revolutionary.
')
Let's first understand why Google in general is an artificial intelligence. Against the background of news about Android, hydroelectric power plants, and so on and so forth, it is easy to forget that Google is primarily a search. Actually, it is he who brings the lion's share of income. But what is the search for tomorrow?
Quote 1:
“Back in 2000, Larry Page, one of the founders of Google, announced that the ideal version of the search engine would be artificial intelligence.
Quote 2 (from Google's internal 2006 document):
"To become the best in the search, we must create a world-class research center dedicated to artificial intelligence."
Why precisely artificial intelligence? The fact is that the existing search does not understand the essence of the request. It simply searches for keywords, forming a page-based issue. For the search revolution, Google must understand what you are looking for. At the same time shoveling huge amounts of data, standing not only from the index of pages (here it is worth remembering also about the Deep Web).
According to Oleg, if you look at the activities of Google from this point of view, it becomes clear why some unprofitable Google projects have appeared. Some typical examples are given:
1. Almost 10 years ago, Google launched a large-scale project to scan library books. He quarreled with the copyright holders but did not stop. As the science historian George Dyson writes, in 2005 he was invited to lecture for Google employees, and one of them said that the quote was again: “the digitization of books was not started so that people read them:“ We are scanning books to be read by artificial intelligence. "
2. Street View project. Most of the data collected by branded cars is not available to users. But Google’s self-driving car looks at the world with almost the same sensors.
3. Project GOOG-411, voice reference, receiving requests and giving answers in a voice form. The service is unprofitable, but its task is different - to accumulate a base of voice queries for further learning of a more advanced system.
But even with this in mind, Kurt Kurzweil’s recruitment is an extraordinary event. The fact is, again, the quotation: “some consider him to be a brilliant seer, others - perhaps the founder of a sect.“
The person who was the first in the world to create a text recognition system, and the creator of one of the first synthesizers able to accurately imitate the sound of traditional musical instruments, is strongly associated with the term “singularity”. What it is. It is assumed that “when the limitations of the human brain are overcome, technical progress will go into a tailspin. A chain reaction will begin: powerful artificial intelligence will more quickly than people figure out how to build an even more powerful system, it will continue to improve - and so on ad infinitum (or rather, until the physical limit is reached). After that, the changes will become so rapid that even the most approximate predictions about what happens next lose their meaning. This point of the story is proposed to be called “technological singularity”.
According to Kurzweil, by 2030 (by Moore’s well-known majority), computers will become so complex that they can imitate the work of the human brain. Here and then comes the singularity. But Google is certainly not interested in this. Search engine interesting developments in the field of artificial intelligence. It is important for us to understand where we are going. And since Kurzweil considers the appearance of a singularity possible, it means we will move in that direction.
So, from the middle of last December Google’s famous inventor and futurologist Ray Kurzweil started working at Google. As Oleg Paramonov writes in his article (and this is the main text I wanted to refer to), this event is out of the ordinary and, I’m not afraid of this word, revolutionary.
')
Let's first understand why Google in general is an artificial intelligence. Against the background of news about Android, hydroelectric power plants, and so on and so forth, it is easy to forget that Google is primarily a search. Actually, it is he who brings the lion's share of income. But what is the search for tomorrow?
Quote 1:
“Back in 2000, Larry Page, one of the founders of Google, announced that the ideal version of the search engine would be artificial intelligence.
Quote 2 (from Google's internal 2006 document):
"To become the best in the search, we must create a world-class research center dedicated to artificial intelligence."
Why precisely artificial intelligence? The fact is that the existing search does not understand the essence of the request. It simply searches for keywords, forming a page-based issue. For the search revolution, Google must understand what you are looking for. At the same time shoveling huge amounts of data, standing not only from the index of pages (here it is worth remembering also about the Deep Web).
According to Oleg, if you look at the activities of Google from this point of view, it becomes clear why some unprofitable Google projects have appeared. Some typical examples are given:
1. Almost 10 years ago, Google launched a large-scale project to scan library books. He quarreled with the copyright holders but did not stop. As the science historian George Dyson writes, in 2005 he was invited to lecture for Google employees, and one of them said that the quote was again: “the digitization of books was not started so that people read them:“ We are scanning books to be read by artificial intelligence. "
2. Street View project. Most of the data collected by branded cars is not available to users. But Google’s self-driving car looks at the world with almost the same sensors.
3. Project GOOG-411, voice reference, receiving requests and giving answers in a voice form. The service is unprofitable, but its task is different - to accumulate a base of voice queries for further learning of a more advanced system.
But even with this in mind, Kurt Kurzweil’s recruitment is an extraordinary event. The fact is, again, the quotation: “some consider him to be a brilliant seer, others - perhaps the founder of a sect.“
The person who was the first in the world to create a text recognition system, and the creator of one of the first synthesizers able to accurately imitate the sound of traditional musical instruments, is strongly associated with the term “singularity”. What it is. It is assumed that “when the limitations of the human brain are overcome, technical progress will go into a tailspin. A chain reaction will begin: powerful artificial intelligence will more quickly than people figure out how to build an even more powerful system, it will continue to improve - and so on ad infinitum (or rather, until the physical limit is reached). After that, the changes will become so rapid that even the most approximate predictions about what happens next lose their meaning. This point of the story is proposed to be called “technological singularity”.
According to Kurzweil, by 2030 (by Moore’s well-known majority), computers will become so complex that they can imitate the work of the human brain. Here and then comes the singularity. But Google is certainly not interested in this. Search engine interesting developments in the field of artificial intelligence. It is important for us to understand where we are going. And since Kurzweil considers the appearance of a singularity possible, it means we will move in that direction.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/166393/
All Articles