THE PROBLEM WITH WOLFRAM ALPHA
If you don't know what Wolfram Alpha is, use a search engine other than Google and you will quickly find out. If you don't want to do that, stop reading this thread now.
Google finds stuff. What you do with the stuff is up to you. Wolfram Alpha considers stuff, thinks stuff, concludes stuff.
We have a whole generation of folks who can't even master "Right on Red, AFTER STOP." I don't think for one minute any of them are going to critically look behind Wolfram Alpha's conclusions.
Heck we really don't know whose brain Wolfram Alpha is using on any given query (Yes, I know the structure comes from Wolfram hisownself but that's different from the logic model). Do we really need another set of digested conclusions to make us even less intellectual curious and even lazier than we are now?
I know almost anything can be abused and there is no cure for stupid but the concept of Wolfram Alpha scares me a bit. I think my response to WA is gonna be "Watchu Talkin' 'bout, Willis?"
Stay tuned.
posted by UMRBlog @ 16:00
8 comments
8 Comments:
I think Wolfram toured with Van Halen last year.
You're not leaning into this!
TYFCB
Even our current popular search engines have political leanings and can bury certain links, or hide them entirely.
Wikipedia kept deleting embarrassing connections Obama had to "bad guys".
Most people are satisfied with being led, but like to think they are thinking. It is easier to just go along with the flow.
1816,
You're right about that. Even in old Alta Vista and Google there are some biases in the search filters. Mostly they are commercial biases ("pay me, go higher on the list").
Now we have to decide whether to take the next step and just allow the engine to perform our critical skills for us.
Thank you for your constructive comments. I hope some folks found this interesting. These days, if not "tea bagger deprived of all fundamental rights and sent to Gitmo by evil city democrats" it doesn't get much discussion.
That's a parochial filter, I guess.
TYFCB
Actually I think the internet has widened people's horizons. Kids get a lot of lefty meme indoctrination from the "educators" ... then TV inundates them with mostly PC thinking. The net may be our only hope for free thought.
If folks take time to get involved in a blog or cruise around the internet a little, they will at least be exposed to many opinions, and will have a chance to decide which ones make sense.
I know of the tea parties, but you have referred to the tea bagger a couple times, so a quick look on Google revealed this definition:
a man that squats on top of a womens face and lowers his genitals into her mouth during sex, known as "teabagging"
Democrats are all into diversity, so even if you observed that act at a city counsel meeting, I don't imagine the Democrats would send anyone to Gitmo for it.
Of course some clever lefties decided to tag those Rick Santelli style tea partyers as "tea baggers", and even the MSM elite followed along with the juvenille little gag.
I wouldn't doubt there are evil city officials that use position to oppress their opposition, but I'm unaware of this incident that seems to haunt you.
Oh, and here is the wikipedia link on the tea party thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_protests#.22Teabagging.22
While Wikipedia can be wrong, I find them pretty good about giving an overview. I agree with your point about not letting the programmers do our thinking, but the flip side is there are many tools that help with processing the masses of information we are exposed to.
Anon 1358,
Not my intent. I'll find a new shorthand and I appreciate your increasing my awareness.
TYFCB
no problem, most use the term innocently I think, but it became such a big deal, that it is now not proper usage ... Wolfram Alpha didn't know what to do with my input, but Anderson Cooper told me so LOL
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