Google Would Beat Bing At Jeopardy, Says Wolfram

destinyland writes "Stephen Wolfram, the physicist behind the Wolfram Alpha 'answer engine,' believes that Google would beat Bing in any contest based on questions from Jeopardy. 'Wolfram took a sample of Jeopardy clues and fed them into search engines,' explains one technology blog. 'When it came to the first page, Google got 69 percent correct, just beating Ask with 68 percent and Bing on 63 percent. ... To put that into context, the average human contestant gets 60 percent of answers correct, while champion Ken Jennings has a record of 79 percent.' Interestingly, Wikipedia came in last, scoring 23%, though they may have more to do with how Wikipedia handles searches. In two weeks, IBM's Watson computer will compete on Jeopardy against two of the show's all-time human champions."

Comments

Google results still much more accurate

[SuperKendall]

For the past few weeks I've switched over to Bing as my primary search engine.

Overall it works OK, but there have been a number of instances where Google has produced some dramatically better search results, as it in found something related to what I was looking for at all, on the first page. I've only gone over to look at Google when it seemed like the Bing results were not what I was expecting, but it has been interesting to find there still is a pretty large quality gap as I was thinking it might have been closed by now.

Re:Google results still much more accurate

[SuperKendall]

I switched for two reasons:

1) Because I wanted to see if other search engines could work as well

2) Primarily, because I differ too greatly with Google at this point philosophically on the killing of the video tag under the guise to move to an open codec, and I wanted to reduce support of Googles revenue stream, even if only a tiny fraction they will never notice - it just makes me feel better.

Mostly it doesn't matter much, but there are a few times a week at least I have to turn back to Google.

Re:Google results still much more accurate

[MoeDrippins]

> e.g., I search for intel drivers, and I get three pages worth of intelligence tests from stupid quiz sites)

I'm going to have to call shenanigans on at least one point; I just did a search for "intel drivers" (no quotes), and the entire first page was ... Intel Drivers related.

Here's a screenshot: http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/1377/20110130184253.png

Re:Google results still much more accurate

[MightyYar]

I differ too greatly with Google at this point philosophically on the killing of the video tag under the guise to move to an open codec,

I often vote with my wallet, too. I was a NY Giants fan until I witnessed a parking attendant hit a squirrel with his truck. I was appalled by such animal cruelty, and have since switched my allegiance to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Re:Google results still much more accurate

[SadButTrue]

I switched for two reasons:

1) Because I wanted to see if other search engines could work as well

2) Primarily, because I differ too greatly with Google at this point philosophically on the killing of the video tag under the guise to move to an open codec, and I wanted to reduce support of Googles revenue stream, even if only a tiny fraction they will never notice - it just makes me feel better.

Mostly it doesn't matter much, but there are a few times a week at least I have to turn back to Google.

I couldn't agree more. The way google is forcing Apple and Microsoft to not support the open and non patent encumbered WebM makes me sick. It is amazing to me how many sheeple still support evil google over the icon of fair market practices that is Microsoft.

Standard Deviation?

[Kensai7]

Aren't these percentages too close to be meaningful? Of course it depends on the sample, but I think unless we get an all-winning AI it's interesting but nothing really special.

That may be, but -

[93 Escort Wagon]

Wikipedia would KICK *SS in the "Anime" category!

Let's do a test.

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

http://www.google.com/search?q=stephen+wolfram+is+famous+for+this+self+aggrandizing+book

http://www.bing.com/search?q=stephen+wolfram+is+famous+for+this+self+aggrandizing+book

Google 1, Bing 0

Re:Let's do a test.

[nathan.fulton]

This post is now the top result on Bing. Win.

Aside: Thees type of tests -- where you ask questions specific ways and gauge results -- are really useful if you'd like to do some experimentation with different search engines and avoid "bias." When I first tried Bing, I was astounded at how terrible it was. But my search results improved significantly when I stopped using "Google idioms," phrases that I know from past trial/error are very likely to get me a certain type of result from Google.

Switching search engines for a week is an interesting introspective exercise.

Wikipedia search is useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you've got the exact title, you pretty much need to google site:en.wikipedia.org in order to find what you're after. Google and Wikipedia together work great.

Yeah, but . . .

[Seumas]

Which would win at Wheel of Fortune?