Googler Alfred Spector Grants Interview
February 15, 2010
TechRadar ran “Google’s Alfred Spector on Voice Search, Hybrid Intelligence and Beyond”. If you are a Google watcher, you will want to read this write up. The “hook” for the story is voice search. Now before you get too excited, the Googler does not mention that the voice search interface for a search engine is the product of top Googlers Sergey Brin and Monika Henzinger. You know Mr. Brin, but Ms. Henzinger may be even more intellectually adept. You may want to snag a copy of US7366668 because it can provide some useful insight into the references that Mr. Spector makes in his comments.
Second, you need to know who Alfred Spector is. He’s been at Google a couple of years, joining in 2007. Prior to founding Transarc Corp., he was a professor at Carnegie Mellon. Like most Googlers, he has a wheelbarrow full of awards, including his being inducted as a Fellow of the ACM in 2006.
For me, the key points in the write up were:
- Google’s voice search has come along rapidly.
- Voice search is important in mobile search.
- Machine translation is coming along.
Okay. I understand.
Was there a nugget that makes the goose’s feathers stand up?
Yep, and here’s the key comment in the article. Mr. Spector is quoted as saying:
“It’s very difficult to solve these technological problems without human input,” he says. “It’s hard to create a robot that’s as clever, smart and knowledgeable of the world as we humans are. But it’s not as tough to build a computational system like Google, which extends what we do greatly and gradually learns something about the world from us, but that requires our interpretation to make it really successful.
How are these human inputs integrated into voice and other tough information problems? That question is not answered. My new Google study on rich media does describe some of the systems and methods that Google uses. Surprising stuff and not in Mr. Spector’s comments.
When Mr. Brin or Mr. Page “invent” something. Do you think that invention is important? I do. That “hybrid intelligence” stuff is interesting as well.
Stephen E Arnold, February 15, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Since I mention a patent, I will report my hopeless state of poverty to the USPTO, an outfit with a surfeit of financial and intellectual riches.
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