While Google has improved its ranking of useful information over the years, its basic foundation remains the same. Reuters
While Google has improved its ranking of useful information over the years, its basic foundation remains the same. Reuters
While Google has improved its ranking of useful information over the years, its basic foundation remains the same. Reuters
While Google has improved its ranking of useful information over the years, its basic foundation remains the same. Reuters

Google's AI researchers propose a new kind of search engine


Kelsey Warner
  • English
  • Arabic

A team at Google has laid out a vision for a new search engine, arguing artificial intelligence is advancing fast enough to one day completely replace the index-and-retrieve system the company has relied upon since 1998.

In a draft paper titled "Rethinking Search", AI researchers describe a new kind of search engine that provides a succinct expert answer with the help of algorithms, as opposed to generating a list of web pages that lead to possible answers.

“Given the significant recent progress developing information retrieval, question answering and pre-trained language modelling capabilities, now is an opportune time to take a step back to try to envision what possibilities the future might hold,” Donald Metzler, a software engineer at Google, and his co-authors write. “What if the distinction between retrieval and ranking went away and instead there was a single response?”

In the 23 years since it was founded in Menlo Park, California, Google has continued to index the vast quantities of information constantly updating and changing on the Internet, retrieve the appropriate searched-for information when queried and rank those web pages by the relevance to the person searching.

Over the last couple of decades, and with the help of machine learning, Google has improved its ranking of useful information, but the basic foundation remains the same.

Advertising on its search platform also generates the bulk of parent company Alphabet’s revenue. Google made $31.9 billion in search ad sales last quarter, up from $24.5bn in the first quarter of 2020.

While it is unclear if the company wants to upend its business model, AI researchers say that machine learning, a type of AI, has advanced enough in the last few years to begin thinking about replacing the Google search platform wholesale. The Google team envisions a new search engine that is able to synthesise the top relevant information to provide a single answer.

A number of interesting and difficult research and engineering challenges ... must be solved before the envisioned system can be realised.

They argue that people prefer to ask an expert for questions that might require nuance or information. Instead of asking an expert, however, over 70 per cent of Internet users Google it, according to a 2017 analysis by Search Engine Journal. This often works well, but the responsibility is with the searcher to sift through and identify the useful information and come up with an answer.

At the moment, pre-trained question-and-answer programmes are “dilettantes rather than experts”, according to the researchers. “They do not have a true understanding of the world.”

Ask a popular voice-assistant programme like Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant for an answer to a question and the chances are the response will be, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand” or worse, an entirely incorrect answer.

Crowd-sourced platforms like Quora and Ask are popular because of this preference to ask an expert, but are limited by the quality of the source providing the answer and incomplete subject matter.

Jason Dorrier, managing editor at tech publisher SingularityHub, compared the plan to the beloved conversational computer in Star Trek, but questioned how a change to Google's search engine might alter the way people contribute to the Internet.

“If we primarily consume information by reading prose-y responses synthesised by algorithms—as opposed to opening and reading the individual pages themselves—would creators publish as much work? And how would Google and other search engine makers compensate creators who, in essence, are making the information that trains the algorithms themselves?”

In addition to these questions, several major hurdles familiar to the AI community remain, including training language models to be unbiased, to always select the most authoritative source and to learn from a diverse range of viewpoints, the authors said. There are also open questions about whether the model can scale and be trained in multiple languages.

"A number of interesting and difficult research and engineering challenges ... must be solved before the envisioned system can be realised," the Google team wrote. Still, they conclude that it is a new and "ambitious research direction" worth pursuing.

LIKELY TEAMS

South Africa
Faf du Plessis (captain), Dean Elgar, Aiden Markram, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Quinton de Kock (wkt), Vernon Philander, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel, Lungi Ngidi.

India (from)
Virat Kohli (captain), Murali Vijay, Lokesh Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik (wkt), Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Mohammad Shami, Jasprit Bumrah.

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The specs

Engine: four-litre V6 and 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo

Transmission: six-speed and 10-speed

Power: 271 and 409 horsepower

Torque: 385 and 650Nm

Price: from Dh229,900 to Dh355,000

THE SPECS

Engine: 6.0-litre, twin-turbocharged W12

Transmission: eight-speed automatic

Power: 626bhp

Torque: 900Nm

Price: Dh1,050,000

On sale: now

A MINECRAFT MOVIE

Director: Jared Hess

Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa

Rating: 3/5

FROM%20THE%20ASHES
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Usain Bolt's time for the 100m at major championships

2008 Beijing Olympics 9.69 seconds

2009 Berlin World Championships 9.58

2011 Daegu World Championships Disqualified

2012 London Olympics 9.63

2013 Moscow World Championships 9.77

2015 Beijing World Championships 9.79

2016 Rio Olympics 9.81

2017 London World Championships 9.95

Sunday:
GP3 race: 12:10pm
Formula 2 race: 1:35pm
Formula 1 race: 5:10pm
Performance: Guns N' Roses

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Global state-owned investor ranking by size

1.

United States

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China

3.

UAE

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Japan

5

Norway

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Canada

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Singapore

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Australia

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Biography

Favourite book: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Holiday choice: Anything Disney-related

Proudest achievement: Receiving a presidential award for foreign services.

Family: Wife and three children.

Like motto: You always get what you ask for, the universe listens.

if you go

The flights

Emirates have direct flights from Dubai to Glasgow from Dh3,115. Alternatively, if you want to see a bit of Edinburgh first, then you can fly there direct with Etihad from Abu Dhabi.

The hotel

Located in the heart of Mackintosh's Glasgow, the Dakota Deluxe is perhaps the most refined hotel anywhere in the city. Doubles from Dh850

 Events and tours

There are various Mackintosh specific events throughout 2018 – for more details and to see a map of his surviving designs see glasgowmackintosh.com

For walking tours focussing on the Glasgow Style, see the website of the Glasgow School of Art. 

More information

For ideas on planning a trip to Scotland, visit www.visitscotland.com

It Was Just an Accident

Director: Jafar Panahi

Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr

Rating: 4/5

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
Total funding: Self funded
Number of employees: 4
War 2

Director: Ayan Mukerji

Stars: Hrithik Roshan, NTR, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana

Rating: 2/5

Brief scores

Toss India, chose to bat

India 281-7 in 50 ov (Pandya 83, Dhoni 79; Coulter-Nile 3-44)

Australia 137-9 in 21 ov (Maxwell 39, Warner 25; Chahal 3-30)

India won by 26 runs on Duckworth-Lewis Method

The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo

Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm

Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm

Transmission: 9-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km

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Price: From Dh117,059

How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
  • The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
  • The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
  • The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
  • The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
  • The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg

Results:

First Test: New Zealand 30 British & Irish Lions 15

Second Test: New Zealand 21 British & Irish Lions 24

Third Test: New Zealand 15 British & Irish Lions 15

COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENomad%20Homes%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2020%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EHelen%20Chen%2C%20Damien%20Drap%2C%20and%20Dan%20Piehler%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%20and%20Europe%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%20PropTech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunds%20raised%20so%20far%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%2444m%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Acrew%20Capital%2C%2001%20Advisors%2C%20HighSage%20Ventures%2C%20Abstract%20Ventures%2C%20Partech%2C%20Precursor%20Ventures%2C%20Potluck%20Ventures%2C%20Knollwood%20and%20several%20undisclosed%20hedge%20funds%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs

AT4 Ultimate, as tested

Engine: 6.2-litre V8

Power: 420hp

Torque: 623Nm

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)

On sale: Now

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Document everything immediately; including dates, times, locations and witnesses

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US households add $601bn of debt in 2019

American households borrowed another $601 billion (Dh2.2bn) in 2019, the largest yearly gain since 2007, just before the global financial crisis, according to February data from the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

Fuelled by rising mortgage debt as homebuyers continued to take advantage of low interest rates, the increase last year brought total household debt to a record high, surpassing the previous peak reached in 2008 just before the market crash, according to the report.

Following the 22nd straight quarter of growth, American household debt swelled to $14.15 trillion by the end of 2019, the New York Fed said in its quarterly report.

In the final three months of the year, new home loans jumped to their highest volume since the fourth quarter of 2005, while credit cards and auto loans also added to the increase.

The bad debt load is taking its toll on some households, and the New York Fed warned that more and more credit card borrowers — particularly young people — were falling behind on their payments.

"Younger borrowers, who are disproportionately likely to have credit cards and student loans as their primary form of debt, struggle more than others with on-time repayment," New York Fed researchers said.

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Yuval Noah Harari, Jonathan Cape