Google’s search for meaning

January 30, 2005 | Source: NewScientist.com News

Computers can now deduce the meaning of words from the frequency of nearby words in Google searches. The finding could bring forward the day that true artificial intelligence is developed.

Paul Vitanyi and Rudi Cilibrasi of the National Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam have developed a statistical indicator based on a measure of a logical distance separating a pair of words: the “normalised Google distance,” or NGD. They are using this to develop a database of how words relate to each other.

“This is automatic meaning extraction,” says Vitanyi. “It could well be the way to make a computer understand things and act semi-intelligently,” he says.