From Search Engines to Question-Answering Systems - The Need for New Tools

Abstract Search engines, with Google at the top, have many remarkable capabilities. But what is not among them is the deduction capability—the capability to synthesize an answer to a query by drawing on bodies of information which are resident in various parts of the knowledge base. It is this capability that differentiates a question-answering system, Q/A system for short, from a search engine. Construction of Q/A systems has a long history in AI. Interest in Q/A systems peaked in the seventies and eighties, and began to decline when it became obvious that the available tools were not adequate for construction of systems having significant question-answering capabilities. However, Q/A systems in the form of domain-restricted expert systems have proved to be of value, and are growing in versatility, visibility and importance. Search engines as we know them today owe their existence and capabilities to the advent of the Web. A typical search engine is not designed to come up with answ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: AWIC
• Authors: Lotfi A. Zadeh
• Keywords: AWIC 2003, Q/A Systems, Search Engine, World Knowledge