Google Now Has Evolved Further; Can Now Answer Even More Complex Questions

dgstorm

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Jan 5, 2011
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"The system goes online August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug." ~ Arnold Schwarzeneggar as The Terminator in the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day

While the above quote is a gloom and doom scenario from an entertaining sci-fi movie, the reality is that our current "AI" systems are a far cry from self awareness. Despite that, the most used "digital assistants" keep getting better. Siri, Cortana, Alexa and Google Now are constantly improved by their respective designers.

For the most part Google Now still remains the top dog as far as usability and capabilities area concerned. It might not have the same lively personality as its competitors, but it is much more effective at offering up the information and data that we crave. With Google's latest improvement/enhancement, it has become even better.

According to the latest reveal straight from Google's engineers, the Google Search app can now understand and respond to complex questions that it couldn't before. It is even beginning to understand the intent of the person asking the question, as well as the meaning behind the question. This includes some of the following complex linguistics examples:
  • Superlatives (tallest, largest, etc.)
  • Ordered items (“Who are the tallest Mavericks players?”)
  • Points in time (“What songs did Taylor Swift record in 2014?”)
  • Complex combinations (“What was the U.S. population when Bernie Sanders was born?”)
With each new improvement, Google Now gets that much closer to being able to understand questions as if we were asking another human being instead of just a machine. Who knows if any of the various AI digital assistants will ever truly achieve sentience, but one thing is for sure: they keep getting more and more useful as they continue to evolve. For now, Google Now is still the top dog in capabilities and language comprehension, and it has only pulled further ahead of the competition.

Source: GoogleBlog
 
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