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A comment on Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click. Parent comment

Re:Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click by wongarsu on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @02:10PM (#20688631)
A good comparison here is WolframAlpha, which can also answer all those queries (I was a bit surprised that the Texas Rangers example worked, but it does [1]). Most of their data comes from a curated list of primary sources, not Wikipedia or random websites.

1: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=texas+rangers+next+gam...

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Re:Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click by noobermin on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @02:38PM (#20688905)
Curated might be better, Google has been wrong in their answers in the past.
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Re:Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click by wongarsu on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @03:09PM (#20689185)
Not only are the sources of WolframAlpha curated, they even go the extra step to make sure it's correct. From their FAQ:

"How is Wolfram|Alpha's data checked?

We use a portfolio of automated and manual methods, including statistics, visualization, source cross-checking and expert review. With trillions of pieces of data, it's inevitable that there are still errors out there.

[...]

How is real-time data curated?

Wolfram|Alpha effectively checks real-time data (such as weather, earthquakes, market prices, etc.) against built-in criteria and models. If an unexpected deviation is found, Wolfram|Alpha will normally indicate it, for example by showing lines as dashed."

https://www.wolframalpha.com/faqs/#data-in-wolfram-alpha

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Re:Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click by MereInterest on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @03:29PM (#20689359)
I think the best one I've seen was when Google's natural language processing mistook the subject of a sentence. Rather than saying that the Mariner 10 space probe used a gravity assist on Venus to reach Mercury, it instead said that Mercury received a gravity assist from Venus.
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Re:Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click by tzs on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @04:44PM (#20690039)
Or maybe Google was getting its astronomy from a site that believes Immanuel Velikovsky's theories... [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_in_Collision

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