It makes no sense to talk like a robot does it? Yet, years of conditioning by search engines have resulted in some rather bizarre sentence construction. Alas, you may return to being a human as you search the Google.

With the release of Hummingbird, Google’s latest major algorithm change, you may officially talk to Google the way you talk to your mom. Queries like, “where is the nearest sushi restaurant?” or “what is the capital of Iowa?” will work just as well as “capital city Iowa.” Goodbye robots!

While this may seems like a big change to searchers and a bigger change to optimizers, this dates back to 2007. I remember an interview where Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, said we look for a time when we can ask Google ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ It just so happens that 6 years later that became reality.

As I always have to add a bit of philosophical spin to things. I must ask is it just that the algorithm is becoming more human or is there a more sinister side to this sophistication? Google’s hire of Ray Kurzweil, the author of  The Singularity is Near, mostly flew under the radar, but is there a connection? Someone with a vision of creating artificial intelligence so powerful that humans download themselves into the cloud at the helm of “engineering,” certainly has an interest in this sophistication, right? I only say this because Jaron Lanier, author of You Are Not a Gadget, warns us about teaching the machine.

I’m sure it’s fine though. 🙂

 

Photo courtesy of Intel Free Press.