Don't get me wrong: Google is the nearest thing to Star Fleet the world has seen. It's benevolent, powerful, and really does mean to organize the world's information in service to humanity.
But it has a blind spot, in that it doesn't know (or can't act as though) most people are not "smart." And they're not. *Most* people -- meaning more …
Don't get me wrong: Google is the nearest thing to Star Fleet the world has seen. It's benevolent, powerful, and really does mean to organize the world's information in service to humanity.
But it has a blind spot, in that it doesn't know (or can't act as though) most people are not "smart." And they're not. *Most* people -- meaning more than half -- are significantly ignorant. Google Search, for example, will always try to return some kind of result, even if a better, even necessary response would be more like, "Your query is laden with assumptions and unspecified context. Please ask a better question."
Providing a result for wildly diffuse queries tends to validate those queries. It's expected that the user, upon receiving a sub-optimal response, will naturally improve his query before taking further action. That's a politely unrealistic expectation.
Don't get me wrong: Google is the nearest thing to Star Fleet the world has seen. It's benevolent, powerful, and really does mean to organize the world's information in service to humanity.
But it has a blind spot, in that it doesn't know (or can't act as though) most people are not "smart." And they're not. *Most* people -- meaning more than half -- are significantly ignorant. Google Search, for example, will always try to return some kind of result, even if a better, even necessary response would be more like, "Your query is laden with assumptions and unspecified context. Please ask a better question."
Providing a result for wildly diffuse queries tends to validate those queries. It's expected that the user, upon receiving a sub-optimal response, will naturally improve his query before taking further action. That's a politely unrealistic expectation.
LQ