The Introduction of AI into Web Search Engines
https://www.wired.com/2016/02/ai-is-changing-the-technology-behind-google-searches/
Over the past couple of years, Google has experienced an enormous shift in the operation of their search engine. For most of their existence, Google has utilized numerous algorithms created by their engineers to generate results to search queries. This system has changed recently as the head of the company’s search engine, Amit Singhal, has stepped-down and been replaced by John Giannandrea, an expert in the field of artificial intelligence. Google has since adopted a new deep learning system called RankBrain to decide the top results for search queries. This machine-learning technology has the ability to learn new words and phrases to continually increase its intelligence and allow it to provide very accurate results to search queries.
This article relates to the topic of web searches and link analysis that we have been covering recently in this course. Search engine websites are constantly looking for the next biggest improvement to their algorithm for search queries. Throughout Google’s history they have made various changes to make their algorithms more accurate and powerful. Before having implemented the artificial intelligent technology RankBrain, the Google search engine exclusively used man-made algorithms that used many of the same concepts as PageRank. PageRank is an effective method to measure the authority of web pages in order to rank them and provide an accurate and helpful response to a search query. This move towards artificial intelligence instead of the old rules-based system may be a sign of things to come in the field of search engines.