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Boiling Down Books, Algorithmically

Posted by timothy on from the infallible-is-a-very-strong-word dept.

destinyland writes "A year ago, Aaron Stanton harangued Google over his new project, a web site analyzing patterns in books to generate infallible recommendations. In March he finally finished a prototype which he showed to Google, Yahoo, and Amazon, and he's just announced that he's finally received a big contract which 'gives us a great deal of potential data to work with.' The 25-year-old's original prototype examined over 200 books, plotting 729,000 data points across 30,293 scenes — but its universe of analyzed novels is about to become much, much bigger."

29 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Just one more errosion.... by zappepcs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The difference between now and 100 years ago becomes more apparent each day. Then, owning books was a sign of affluence, of intelligence. Now? Everything is up to question, and should be. Analyzing books and other public material is just another step in putting intelligence out there for everyone, not just those that can afford it. I applaud it, and all the dangers it brings. Such hurdles are necessary, but we must assault them to overcome barriers that should no longer exist.

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    1. Re:Just one more errosion.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Knowledge, not intelligence.

    2. Re:Just one more errosion.... by blahplusplus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What really hits a nerve with me is why the scientific community hasn't opened up all their journals for others to read. I imagine many retired and amateur scientists, engineers, hobbyists, etc, would have a lot of insight into many engineering and scientific problems and also make many discoveries as well. Intelligence is not limited to the credentialed, those of high status or currently employed, many discoveries happen simply by exposure to as many minds as possible, and finding connections and errors in others works..

    3. Re:Just one more errosion.... by Skreems · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you're talking about news, you're correct. But the original article is applying this to works of fiction, which still take at least a decade to go out of date (if not longer) despite the internet and the hard-on you appear to have for it. This "invention" is not about freeing information, it's basically a fancy way to mathematically calculate that if you like The Hobbit, you might also like The Lord Of The Rings. It might be beneficial to someone looking for more of the same, but it doesn't even seem to serve to further creativity since by design it will not recommend things that will expand your horizons, but will encourage people to stay with the safety of yet another rehash of something they've already read.

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      Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
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    4. Re:Just one more errosion.... by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or wisdom, for that matter.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    5. Re:Just one more errosion.... by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you wish to spend your nights reading information from 2+ years ago, that is your problem. The rest of us want today's information, and now. Good luck with the personal library.

      It's getting to the point that you need a 2+ year filter just to dampen the noise in the signal.
      And let's give a shout out to all of the library homiez. While I'm affluent enough to afford the occasional impulse book at the store with the built-in coffee shop, I do recall many an hour of random wandering in the public library in my youth.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    6. Re:Just one more errosion.... by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I wish it weren't so (and I submit all my papers to http://www.arxiv.org/ as well to the journals), but the fact is, closed journals provide significant value both to the reader and to the submitting author. I'm not really trying to defend the system here, by the way, I'm just trying to explain what purpose it serves (and what an open alternative would have to match).

      Referees and Peer-Review Referees are invaluable because someone has to objectively assess articles for basic scientific merit and rigor. The better journals can recruit referees for each submission that truly grok the subject matter and can often work very productively with an author. Quite a number of important advances are made and pitfalls avoided because a referee insisted that a researcher cover her bases before submission. Of course, nobody claims that PR journals are bullshit-free, but they are certainly far better than un-reviewed sources like arxiv.

      This function is especially important for readers in multidisciplinary fields (myself included) that often read papers on subjects in which we are not expert enough to know what constitutes sound science. When I read about some group that has extracted and crystallized some protein, I'd like to know that someone competent at the relevant techniques has scrutinized their methods because I haven't the faintest clue (I'm a physicist by training, a biophysicist by necessity).

      Prestige and Selection Another important function of the journals is to select articles by importance. If a paper makes Nature or Science, that's usually a good indicator that they've made an important advance. The benefits of this selection are twofold: first, readers can keep tabs on work at the forefront without wading through lots of papers. It sounds lazy, but most of us cannot read every paper that is published and are quite glad to outsource some filtering to the journals.

      Secondly, it allows authors to demonstrate to people outside their immediate field what caliber work they've done. Even among people in the same department, it's not immediately clear what qualifies as a breakthrough work (as opposed to incremental work, which I don't trash in the least bit, but it's not really the same hat) -- prestigious journal cites are a good substitute, especially when the alternative is to either become an expert in the field or find one and ask.

      Review Articles Most journals have an in-house staff to write articles reviewing the state of a particular field/technique/whatever. This is also an invaluable services because sometimes one needs a broad, textbook-level summary instead of a large number of discrete, deep papers on a topic. Given that science is done in small, insular little bits, it's natural that there is room for someone to aggregate and summarize those bits and put them into a larger perspective.

      Editing Another thankless job (the snarky comments about the /. eds belie the fact that editing is hard work). Dupes are weeded out and researchers with poor language skills (especially when writing in an adopted language) are given help communicating their ideas. Confusing or unclear language is massaged back into form, figures are well-presented and well-labeled, text is formatted to be easy on the eyes, references are given in a standard form. These things count more than most /.ers realize (Knuth was on to something guys . . )

      Access Brutal honesty, we don't really care about the access restrictions. Every university has license to pretty much all the major journals. We can get them from wherever with a quick login and so can everyone we know. Sorry, but that's the truth.

    7. Re:Just one more errosion.... by shadowofwind · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What really hits a nerve with me is why the scientific community hasn't opened up all their journals for others to read. I imagine many retired and amateur scientists, engineers, hobbyists, etc, would have a lot of insight into many engineering and scientific problems and also make many discoveries as well.

      I like your spirit and agree that there's a lot of really smart, creative people who aren't scientists. However...

      One of the dispiriting things about science is how specialized most subjects have gotten. If you're not an expert in a field, its almost impossible to do anything. Even being an expert in a closely related field often isn't good enough. I don't think this is anyone's fault, its just the natural course of development. So I think the days of ameteurs accomplishing very much are behind us in a great many fields.

      Another issue is that the people who fund scientists often aren't sufficiently literate to distinguish good science from phony science. Scientists are threatened professionally by people who peddle counterfeit knowledge, which has an effect on their fields similar to the effect a flood of counterfeit currency would have on an economy. So they try to protect themselves by controlling the validation of information and the supply of scientists. This legitimate desire is of course twisted by other less honorable inclinations. But there's a legitimate motivation there also.

    8. Re:Just one more errosion.... by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I dunno, man. Pretty much every point you covered is Wiki-able.

    9. Re:Just one more errosion.... by Narpak · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...will encourage people to stay with the safety of yet another rehash of something they've already read.

      Like most people since mass printing became possible. There are many authors whos work would give you great satisfaction, but who you will never read. Perhaps by at least giving people a good selection of tailored recomendation; the quality of that selection could hopefully improve.

      The span of taste is wide and varied. More so than what any bookstore could provide (unless it is online). However when you take things online you encounter another problem; there is truly a vast (and growing) number of books avalible for purchase; trying to create a system for automated recomendation is a logical goal. Even if a system like that doesn't encourage reading things outside your established field of interest. If you arrive at a point where you need something different, a good system should be able to let you browse the top sellers, best reviewed and established classics of any genre. I have no doubt that after various tries, failures and breakthroughs, and as technology improves; consumers of litterature will be given a good online, digital tool for searching through databases and lists of material they might enjoy.

      --
      The Long Now Foundation
    10. Re:Just one more errosion.... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...they don't have to struggle to learn something...

      Not even mensa is that arrogant. If it's easy to learn and/or comes via the ether, it's probably trivial. Intelligent people have to work every bit as hard, we expect a whole lot more from them.

    11. Re:Just one more errosion.... by mrbluze · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or wisdom, for that matter.

      What about insight?

      --
      Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
    12. Re:Just one more errosion.... by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Much better to blame the researchers for not publishing in a more open medium. They're the ones who might actually change their habits, after all.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    13. Re:Just one more errosion.... by umghhh · · Score: 1, Insightful

      That is fascinating - somebody came up with another way to dig patterns in mountains of data thus creating even more data to dig into and people claim it is intelligence, wisdom or knowledge and that everything changed. It is true of course. One big change between now and then (whenever that would be) is that today any ignorant connected to internet and equipped in basic reading skills is able to claim he posses all the knowledge of the world. Sadly the fact that more people have more and easier access to any information has changed one thing: they do not have to think for themselves they can read the answers on the web. In a sense nothing has changed though - reading with understanding is limited to the very few intelligent knowledgeable and (even bigger rarity) wise people. As for author of software in question - maybe knowledgeable fits him to some extent.

    14. Re:Just one more errosion.... by h4rm0ny · · Score: 3, Insightful


      Things become easier to learn when you have more context. If I tell someone about a chemical reaction, they may struggle to remember or understand it. If they are a chemist or have at least a grounding in the subject, they'll be able to slot the knowledge in with associated information and thus understand it and recall it more easily. An "intelligent" person has a wider array of contexts or the ability to quickly find an appropriate context. I am fairly intelligent, but I still don't recall who scored what goal in what match the way some people do. These people absorb such information because they have context as much as for any other reason.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    15. Re:Just one more errosion.... by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Charging people to read the journal creates only a false sense of prestige. Genuine prestige arises from the quality of the articles in the journal.

      Quick addendum, I don't think you understood my meaning. The prestige comes from the quality of the articles that you've written, not acceptance into an elite journal. The point is that the elite journal provides a very useful proxy for assessing the quality of the work. A researcher's publication history provides a very good measure of the quality and focus of his work which would otherwise be difficult to gauge (it would require become expert in the field(s), reading all the articles and then judging their merit -- way too much work).

    16. Re:Just one more errosion.... by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you wish to spend your nights reading information from 2+ years ago, that is your problem. The rest of us want today's information, and now.

      First: there is absolutely nothing wrong with reading information that is 2+ years old. Information itself does not become outdated. News may, but that's only a small portion of all available information. Unless we get some stunning development in calculus, for example, a student in 10 years will be just as well off reading a calculus book published today as a calculus book published 9 years from now. Furthermore, not all books are nonfiction books. Fiction is just as good whenever you read it... or are you saying that all those poor saps who still enjoy Shakespeare's work are just deluding themselves?

      Second: as useful as the Internet is for rapid dissemination of information, printed media still has its place. It's generally far easier to organize and reference a personal-sized collection of books than it would be with electronic versions. Large collections are easier to manage electronically, but the average individual's collection is probably better off on dead trees. Books have the advantage of being more tactilely pleasing, as well: it feels a lot nicer to turn physical pages than to scroll down with your mouse wheel.

      There's a place for both media; it isn't as simple as you paint it, where the enlightened use electronic media, and only Luddites use print.

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    17. Re:Just one more errosion.... by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I hear you, and I know it's difficult. If it were easy, we wouldn't be talking about it, it would be done already.

      I'm just saying that the change must come from the researchers, not the journals. The traditional journals have nothing to gain and everything to lose from going to a more open system, so looking to them for change is the wrong thing. The researchers are ultimately who decides what's reputable and what's not. It will surely take a long time, but if it's going to happen at all then that's where the change will come from.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
  2. If you already read, you don't need this... by thereofone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and if you do not read, you won't want this.

  3. I'll believe it when I see it by clarkkent09 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am skeptical that analyzing the content of the books can lead to good recommendations, let alone "infallible". Two books can be very similar in subject matter and writing style and yet one can be great and the other one awful. The difference is just too subtle for an algorithm to figure out, though I hope I am wrong and it turns out that it works, it would be very useful. Same applies to movies and music as well. I always found "Customers who purchased this book also purchased...." section on amazon to be more valuable than my personalized recommendations

    --
    Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    1. Re:I'll believe it when I see it by wfstanle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I wholeheartedly agree! Take for example two phrases which are equivalent...

      "Eighty seven years ago our ancestors ..."

      and

      "Four score and seven years ago our forefathers ..."

      They say the same thing but what a difference in eloquence.

    2. Re:I'll believe it when I see it by DriedClexler · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Exactly ... which is why I read the summary as "Fast-talking kid talks fools out of their money."

      --
      Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
  4. Yet Another Pointless Dot-Com by techno-vampire · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is just another pointless project that's going to waste the time and skull-sweat of a good but unrealistic programmer. All he's going to have when he's done is the solution to a problem that doesn't, for all practical purposes, exist. Good writers won't need it because they know what to do and how to do it, so they won't use it. It will only be used by poor writers, who won't know how to put the suggestions into effect properly. It may, possibly, tell a writer where their book needs work, or where it's not interesting enough, but I doubt it. Most likely, all it will do is tell it where it's not like other successful books because it won't be able to recognize or take into account any originality. Even if its recommendations are right, a poor writer is highly unlikely to profit from them, because by definition a poor writer won't know which suggestions are good or the skills to take advantage of them properly. No, what a poor writer who wants to get better needs is either a good critique group or some friends who will act as beta-readers, telling him not only what doesn't work but why (Something, I might add, that I find it hard to believe this program could ever do.) and discuss things with the author until they understand each other. Mechanical criticism of literature can only result in mechanical literature, not good writing.

    --
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    1. Re:Yet Another Pointless Dot-Com by Skreems · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wasn't the "improve your writing" aspect an earlier project? I got the impression that the original project was as you described, but the new thing he's trying to partner with Google on is to take the same basic system and use it to recommend "similar to this book" type things in a storefront setting.

      Of course all the problems you listed apply anyway. It's very easy to have a work with all the same pieces as a great work of art, but assembled in such a way that the derivative work is completely unsatisfying.

      A great example of something similar that you can try today and watch as it fails miserably is Pandora.com. They categorize music by a number of different elements so they can recommend similar pieces. And their categorization is quite accurate; they correctly surmised after about five minutes that I enjoy symphonic rock with a mix of acoustic and electric guitars, obscure lyrics, complex themes, unusual rhythm patterns and interesting chord changes. They then proceeded to present me with one after another shitty Coldplay or Radiohead rip-off band who had every element down perfectly, but still managed to make amazingly bad music. I much expect this product to be the same thing but with books.

      "If you like A Deepness In The Sky, why not try An Ewok Christmas: The Novel! They're both about humans meeting strange aliens, and spaceships, and computers, and why are you giving me the finger?"

      --
      Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
      The Urban Hippie
  5. algorithm bombing by notgm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    how long before someone figures how to fool the algorithm, and we all start reading books about enlarging our genetalia, but in a classy way?

  6. Re:a tool by BootNinja · · Score: 3, Insightful

    might be a good tool to help the USPTO with their backlog.

  7. A different book by Hanyin · · Score: 1, Insightful

    What I wonder is: What happens if there's a different style of writing that's not accounted for? I hope they're not just marked down. What will it consider a good book, what's truly interesting and insightful or books that are made to sell like The Da Vinci Code? I can see how much easier it would be to identify which books well sell well but I fear that this will be its only use, and the less said about doing the same for movies the better.

  8. Re:Newspeak by smittyoneeach · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd do anything to get a decent government again.

    "Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for." --Will Rogers

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  9. Historic records, yes. by jd · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I can see exceptional value in indexing, cataloguing and processing all articles in back issues of Wireless World (when it was still called that). There is an enormous wealth of information there on how radio technology improved, when and why. There is also a fantastic amount of information on how to achieve specific effects and how to restore old technology. Not to mention a few pieces on how to build a geostationary communications satellite.

    Other old journals will likewise have a lot of valuable information in them. Archaeologists discover a lot through searching their own journals, discovering lost and forgotten reports of discoveries. Mathematicians routinely publish in arcane and super-obscure journals, making what is known far more extensive than what is known to be known.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)