by Annette
26. March 2007
Last week I talked about Jeff Bezo's Cha-Cha, the new search network that allows human- assited queries via a chat function. Jason Pontin of the NYT wrote an interesting review on Cha-Cha, Jeff Bezo's latest enterprise, and other "artificial articial intelligences" or human-assisted computer programs. Pontin was dissatisfied with the service and claims 'networks are no more intelligent than their smartest members'.
And the same week, Larry Sanger, the sometimes disputed 'creator' of Wikipedia, is now creating a competing product called Citizendium (love the name BTW). The competitive difference here is that Citizendium will require real names and biographies of contributors. The hope is that this screening will sort for greater expertise and draw credentialed writers who have unique intellectual capital to share and avoid inconsistencies in citations.
These two stories illustrate the great divide between how far technology has taken us and where we yet need to go. There is still great opportunity to improve not just search, but other technologies to become more productive, intuitive and generative. And while crowd sourcing may bring together great minds, the problems remind us that unique creative contributions still have a market and a value. Pontin calls it by saying, 'Computers still do some things very poorly.' It's this great divide between what is and what is possible that is and will continue to be the great playground of the human spirit.
