TalkTalk - the Search Engine of the Future
February 7, 2035 - After a lot of hush-hush for several years the much longed for search engine TalkTalk was presented to the press this week. One day talking basically made me speechless; the future has never looked brighter in finding information.
TalkTalk will open to the public next week and this service will be something that you will use more than you can imagine. For the first time you can not only talk to the search engine, you can discuss with it what you are looking for.
If you want to know more about the oil price, TalkTalk asks if you want to know the current oil price, the development of the oil price, or news related to the oil price. You say that you want to read news about it and TalkTalk asks you if you prefer a certain source (information that is stored for you if you want). TalkTalk then direct you to your source, or let you have the latest news related to the oil price in order from the most respected sources.
If you are looking for a certain person, you say his name, and TalkTalk will ask you what you know about him, is he alive, where is he working, is he publicly known etc. Then it asks you what you want to know and easily guide you to a website to find the information. This has made the search possible for a person named Gary Smith which has been impossible through previous search services.
Compared to other search services that uses a certain algorithm to provide data from a search, the artificial intelligence behind TalkTalk is said to easily spot if a certain source is aiming to deceive the searcher. TalkTalk also evaluates and stores every given reply and discussion, to learn how to give even more precise answers. How well this will work in the long run is yet to be seen, but thousands of people have challenged TalkTalk to tune it in before the launch, and the quality is remarkably good.
The first talking search engine saw the light of day more than 30 years ago and was called Speegle. It could read you the results from a written search on the Internet, and was more for the visually handicapped. TalkTalk is there for you 24/7 just a phone call away and on the Internet.
So far, TalkTalk can not read the information from a certain source to you by phone, if it is not in the public domain or freely available. There are currently negotiations to find an arrangment for this, but it would most likely be difficult due to copyright, and to secure an income for the publisher.
TalkTalk is also set to answer questions directly where there is a definite answer. So I called the phone service and it replied "TalkTalk, how may I help you?" I said "Which is the most populous nation in the world?" and before I was ready to take down the answer, it replied "India...anything else?"
Several new features are in the works, licensed from the same artificial intelligence technology. It is more detailed services like how to repair your car, a joker that have thousands of jokes to cheer you up, and the giant project to let everyone have access to a therapist with the same knowledge about the human mind as any experienced therapist.
TalkTalk is accessible over Internet and also by phone for all major territories, even though it only talks English. There are no plans to add other languages in the near future, most likely beacuse the giant investments needed. When you are tired of asking TalkTalk all your questions, just ask, "Where is TalkTalk?" and you will get an answer that will make you leave it with a smile on your lips.
Argument: Artificial intelligence will develop during year 2020-2030 and by then the computers are at the same level as the human brain. Today search engines are used frequently all over the world, and combined with artificial intelligence you will have a friend to talk to that can either give you answers to all the questions you have, or direct you to them.
Questions: What other services can use artificial intelligence? How will education change in the future if basically all knowledge is just a phone call away?
Comments
I could see Google investing in a service like this, although a phone search service is an interesting idea. Finally, so I don't have to wait 33 years, where is TalkTalk?
Posted by: Lachlan
To be able to provide TalkTalk, improvements have to be made in speech-to-text technology for the software to understand the proper questions. Then developments have to be made in artificial intelligence to reach the quality needed to make people use the product. The product will only have a market when you get better and more correct answers faster than what you get today, so we will have to wait some...
Posted by: Pontus Edenberg
I hope the same technology would be available with a text interface. There are reasons why this is preferable to speech. A fully-literate person can assimilate written text several times faster (in words-per-second) than the normal speed of speech. Also, with a text-based search engine which returns ten or twenty results per page, one can skim many results and pick out the two or three relevant ones in seconds. It's hard to see how this could be done with a speech interface.
One situation where I can see that this might be useful is where you can recall the tune of a song but not the exact words (or couldn't make out the exact words when you heard it), and want to identify the song. If the AI was good enough to recognize a human attempt to imitate a known tune, it could answer that kind of question.
Posted by: Infidel753
Yeah..actually, I agree with the above comments. Application of the technology with a text interface is better than to have a speech system. Though speech may appear more convenient, which is actually not. Because of the reasons mentioned in the above comment.
Posted by: Sowmya
Within ten years you'll browse 'the web' through a successor of Google Earth, talk to people. Not (only) from you PC, but from any device. Information and contents will be supertagged, information on the web will be less cluttered but way better organized. As for search engines, you'll probably search more by context. Not exactly 'search' but 'learn', 'tag', maybe even add your own information, thoughts and questions.
Besides that you won't need to talk to computers, even if it's possible. There are more sophisticated input devices emerging. And would you want to talk to a computer? How many people use a voice operated lightswitch in their house?
Posted by: furture
I agree that it is in most cases more efficient with a text interface, and a service like TalkTalk will be a complement to that. It is more difficult to conduct a reasoning with a text interface which is why a speech interface is needed for more advanced queries.
Posted by: Pontus Edenberg