Reading Response 13

Dumais - Data-driven approaches to Information Access

This was a very interesting article simply because I just read another article in my 500 class dealing with the same issues in information retrieval. Like the article says it can be quite frustrating when developing a query for a topic dealing with a word such as saturn when there are multiple meanings. For example if you are looking to find quick information on the planet saturn, when you first type saturn into Google your top two results happen to be detailing the car company and not the planet. This forces a searcher to reformulate his query which is something that I find very interesting. It's almost a science in how one can shape, trim and form the perfect query to find the answers/information they are looking for.

What's even more interesting is this idea of question answering systems. Systems that will provide you with an actual answer to your question rather than documents or sites like a Google search engine would. I feel like for awhile these systems will have to field simple questions such as Who Killed Abraham Lincoln but it will be very impressive when they become sophisticated enough to answer a question like Who Killed Abraham Lincoln and what gun was used?. Multipart questions seem like they would be very difficult for these systems, or maybe it's just not even possible. I'd really love to be able to give one a try.