I just read about a new search AI dubbed Wolfram Alpha (WolframAlpha.com) in an article that was published on Sunday May 3 in The Independent. It talks about this new search engine AI invented by Dr. Stephen Wolfram which supposedly “understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does”. Skimming through the article, I can’t remember getting this excited about a site since learning about the MetaWeb/Freebase API, but after scratching the surface a little bit, the excitement faded away very quickly.

Let me start by saying that I can’t say that I’m very knowledgeable or up to date when it comes to the academic research on the subject - apart from following a few AI and Semantic Web blogs. Now, the thing that immediately raised my eyebrows was a little time line of the history of the Internet which listed a handful of milestones - with the most recent item reading “2009 Dr Stephen Wolfram launches Wolfram Alpha.”, listed right after the traditional stuff that you would expect to see (ARPANET, first PC etc). For a site that is not even public (as of Monday May 4, 2009), it seems awfully rash to have it on a list like that.

Reading the fine print confirmed more and more of my skepticism. For instance, Dr. Wolfram admits that information in the engine is first “curated” or assessed by experts AND it also requires approximately 1,000 people for maintaining the site’s databases and keeping current with new information. All this begs to question how exactly is this an AI or anything revolutionary? And to top that off, the end of the article mentions that Google already is working on something similar which is already live. Wow! - Revolutionary - let’s credit Dr. Wolfram and say a loud Amen.

A person’s past is perhaps the best way to look for clues and Dr. Wolfram is no exception. This is where Dr. Dubya appears to have a solid track record as a self-indulgent hype machine. Consider for instance the overwhelmingly negative feedback and concerns about originality for his supposedly epic ‘10 years in the making’ book ironically titled “A New Kind of Science”. A New Kind of Search-Engine? - No, I doubt so.

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