You only need to look at google's knowledge graph alongside google now to see that that's where they're going. Many Question Answering Systems are able to handle many kinds of questions with relative accuracy now. With all of the different kinds of data sources out there, I'm not really surprised.

That being said machine learning is far from perfect. Allowing for user correction is still an immense must.

Let's hope basic search operators like quotes don't go away anytime soon.