Wolfram!Alpha
One year and four months ago, a huge fuss was made about a new, semantic search engine called Wolfram!Alpha. The press was overflowing with reports on the project led by Stephen Wolfram and his team of a hundred.
At the time, I also had the opportunity to watch a presentation by Stephen Wolfram. To me, it sounded like a loose summary of futuristic speculations. It was a science spectacle that was a little to ego-centered – looking more like a basis for obtaining federal funds than like a technological vision.
Mentally, I put the project in the same category as the well-loved “anthologies”. They, too, are hugely subsidized in Germany. But here, too, I can hardly make out any progress when it comes to practical implementation.
It all reminds me a little of the AI (artificial intelligence) boom during my first years as an IT specialist. And of the fuss they made about languages like Prolog and Lisp at the time. There were times when every office had a poster advertising the next AI fair hanging on the wall. The final result was – nothing.
I am truly curious if I will ever live to see such a thing as a semantic search engine. Basically, I doubt it.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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