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Wolfram Alpha vs. Google — Results Vary
wjousts writes "Technology Review has an article comparing various search results from Wolfram Alpha and Google. Results vary. For example, searching 'Microsoft Apple' in Alpha returns data comparing both companies stock prices, whereas Google top results are news stories mentioning both companies. However, when searching for '10 pounds kilograms,' Alpha rather unhelpfully assumes you want to multiply 10 pounds by 1 kilogram, whereas Google directs you to sites for metric conversions. Change the query to '10 pounds in kilograms' and both give you the result you'd expect (i.e. 4.536 kg)."
Karma be damned, but..
No one cares about a new search engine. Really, Google suits all my needs.
Some argued that Wolfram is not exactly like Google, but regardless, I think competition in this space and elsewhere is a good thing. I know a lot of people like Google, I am one of them. But, to quote a relevant cliche, "absolute power corrupts absolutely". There has to be something or someone keeping profit driven enterprises honest, whether we're talking about search engines or operating systems...
Isn't this like comparing vi to MS Word? They're similar tools that can be used for similar tasks but really they're for very different purposes.
Typing in "Cancer New York" could mean anything.
If you gave that question to a human they'd have no idea what your were looking for.
Why didn't he try asking the question he was trying to ask which was "What are the rates of cancer in new york?" or even just "Cancer rate in new york"
All his other searches are equally stupid.
"Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help."
Reminds me of when I was in France, and still having trouble understanding the spoken French language. I was talking to a guy who asked me, in translation, "Brothers, sisters, one, two, three?" It took me a while to figure out he wanted to know how many siblings I had. Dumbing down the question like that didn't help me understand him any better, it made it worse. Using correct French grammar and simply slowing it down would have been much more helpful.
I imagine Wolfram Alpha is like that.
Is Wolfram Alpha especially good in doing side to side comparisons (ex. from the article: "Microsoft Apple", "Stanford Harvard", "Utah Florida", "Utah Florida population")? Or why did the article test both engines with those queries?
I would have rather expected, complete questions that are nevertheless hard to answer (unless you know a source), such as:
1) "How many bull terriers are in the UK?"
Google: link to Bullterriers on Wikipedia and some dog clubs in the UK.
Wolfram: ???
2) "How many blind people live in the US?"
Google: first link to WikiAnsers (about 1 million, but without any references). Next links seem to be more serious, but difficult to get a real answer to that question (it depends on how you interprete "blind").
Wolfram: ???
3) "What is the color of a strawberry?"
Google: This confuses me, apparently it has many colors...
Wolfram: ???
4) Apparently we need to use a comparison question: "strawberry blackberry" ...
Google: I am getting hungry when I am following all those recipe links
Me too, I mean I should TOTALLY be able to write almost non-human readable "10 kilograms pounds" instead of google's "10 kilograms in pounds". That's so much more difficult!
moox. for a new generation.
No, becasue that is based upon personal opinion. Someone may want a high zoom, some a better CCD, some multi-point auto-focusing.
It will, however, give you an answer to "How many more people died in World War 1 than World War 2?" as that is based on fact.
N.B. I don't care how many died in either war; It's an example of a question with a definite answer.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
How about a test involving actual English-language questions and not just keywords? You know, like all those old tests from school that said "please use complete sentences". There is a reason languages have things like prepositions, adjectives and other parts of speech. They actually help put your communication into context.
Nobody knows what the hell you mean with "Cancer New York" because there is no context. How about "cancer statistics for new york" or "cancer treatment in new york"?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Ok, they take different approaches, work in different ways, and each perform well in areas where the other does not. That doesn't mean they don't compete with one another.
An airplane and a train have very little in common WRT how they work. A train can't get you frmo St. Louis to London. Taking a plane from Munich to Vienna is lunacy. Yet, planes and trains do compete with one another.
Alpha rather unhelpfully assumes you want to multiply 10 pounds by 1 kilogram
Actually, while I agree that is unhelpful, I also don't like the other assumption. Maybe I'm already growing old, but I don't mind if people actually say what they mean instead of speaking or writing in some kind of shortcut-verbs-are-too-expensive-so-I-leave-them-out abbreviated style and leave it to the listener/reader to decypher whatever it could possibly be they mean.
So if you want 10 pounds in kilograms, what exactly is the trouble with actually writing those three (counting the space) additional characters?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Somehow I have different expectations than the author about what some search terms should provide:
SEARCH TERM: Microsoft Apple
WA gives a comparison of stock prices. From TFA I conclude that's also what the author expected. I wouldn't expect that. If I were looking for stock prices, I'd add "stock" to the search term. With "Microsoft Apple" I'd expect to get some relations between Microsoft and Apple (where they compete, what the main differences are, maybe a comparison of market shares).
SEARCH TERM: 10 pounds kilograms
WA's interpretation is the most reasonable. After all, it's the standard way to denote multiplications (as in newton meters, ampere seconds or kilowatt hours). It would never have occured to me to omit the "in" even in Google.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
What exactly do you think the end purpose of either tool is?
The end purpose of Google is to find a web page? No, that's not the end purpose; you want the page for a reason. Usually the reason is to get information. The end purpose of WA is to find information as well. Their purpose is the same, so the comparison is perfectly good. Just like comparing a train to a plane.
Comparing Google to WA is considerably more relevant to most people than comparing Google to "a person". First of all, to compare google to "a person", you're going to have to pick a person (as results would vary wildly from person to person). Can you pick one person who a wide range of readers is likely to turn to as an alternative to Google? I'll bet you can't, and that's why that comparison would be irrelevant. (At best you might get a "human interest" angle out of picking someone well known for knowing things; i.e. "google vs. Ken Jennings" might've worked a few years back.)
But the same is not true of WA. WA will be a tool that a wide audience could consider as an alternative to Google when picking their first attempt to find some piece of information. So, the comparison is in fact perfectly relevant.
Type this into google:
Who is Jamie Lee Curtis' mother?
Look closely at the first entry.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.