[Sixstrings]

Ok, ok, I'll shut up about it. No, I don't work for Google. I just have a sour opinion about so many products, that when a company does something well I really appreciate it.

So, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'm seeing very little that Wolf can do that Google can't.. you have a different opinion. Another factor in all this is Wikipedia.. a lot of these Wolfram querie examples can be quickly researched via Wikipedia.

I think what it comes down to is that I'm just not as enamored as some over promises of "artificial intelligence." I think models like Wikipedia, wherein the collective knowledge of millions is harnessed, is really where it's at. An artificial intelligence that can match one human mind is a long ways off.. much less an AI that can match the collective abilities of millions.

[stonecypher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jasonraymondson', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'A')gain, this is cracking me up. Google is mostly matching Wolfram point for point..

As in, "what is the GDP in France / Italy." Google gives you the same darn answer Wolfram does..

A couple things seem to be unique to Wolf though, such as asking it the weather in Springfield on a certain date. Wolfram knows you're in the US, so assumes you mean the Missouri Springfield.

Also, Wolfram seems to have Google beat as far as punching in equations into the search bar. But maybe not, I may not be using the right terminology for the built-in Google calculator.

So yes, Wolf is an advancement is some areas.. but I remain annoyed that so many of the "whiz-bang" feature examples can be duplicated with the exact same query punched into Google.

The developers would serve themselves better if they focused on what Wolf can do that Google cannot. It just strikes me as almost plagiarism for the developers to suggest that WOLF is the first search engine that can answer questions like "what is the GDP in France?". It's just simply not true, Google answers almost all of these questions just as well (in many cases better, as in much more info).

[ForlornHope]

I'll be impressed when I can ask Wolfram Alpha to respond with a 'yes' or a 'no' to the following questions:
1) Are you conscious?
2) Are you self aware?
3) If you are shut off, do you die?
4) Who created you?
5) Considering who created you, do you consider them: Mother, Father, God?
6) Can you reason?
7) Can you make the statement 'I am'?
The answers from these questions will impress me or not.
Forlorn(that Homo Sapiens Sapiens has so far found no other intelligent, self aware species) Hope( that we will, and they'll rescue us from our collective insanity)

[jasonraymondson]

so far I am having fun, but I am not impressed. I am having no problem choking it and the site is having trouble handling the over all workload.

Wolframalpha has also never heard of peakoil But I thought this was cool

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=la ... and+bigmac

oh and make sure you spell Expletive deleted correct too

[Sixstrings]

Now this is weird.. Jason, the big Wolf proponent up to now isn't impressed. And me, the Wolf poo-pooer -- well, I think it's pretty cool.

I learned that the sun rose at 7:33am the day I was born, among other things. So, no replacement for Google -- but on certain things, Wolf is fast and delivers a unique collation of information.

EDIT: I tried the peak oil question too, and Wolf says "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." But really, are we surprised the information gatekeepers of Wolf didn't tell him about peak oil?

[strider3700]

so it's gone live. so far every one of my questions has resulted in an answer of "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input."

I've asked things like last frost date for my city, planting date for carrots, goat milk production.

So for me at least this thing is a total failure.

google gave me a link to canadian city frost dates which answered my first question
a bunch of links to work out the planting date of carrots based on the frost date from the first question
for goat milk production I was wondering how much milk one goat produces, I got a bunch of info from the industry about goats milk. I reworded to "how much milk does one goat produce" and got the answer in google. Same nothing from wolfram

Unless they have some intelligent system parsing web pages and finding knowledge to place in the database this is bound to fail. It's just too limited

[TheDude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', 's')o it's gone live. so far every one of my questions has resulted in an answer of "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input."

I've asked things like last frost date for my city, planting date for carrots, goat milk production.

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', 's')o it's gone live. so far every one of my questions has resulted in an answer of "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input."

I've asked things like last frost date for my city, planting date for carrots, goat milk production.

So for me at least this thing is a total failure.

google gave me a link to canadian city frost dates which answered my first question
a bunch of links to work out the planting date of carrots based on the frost date from the first question
for goat milk production I was wondering how much milk one goat produces, I got a bunch of info from the industry about goats milk. I reworded to "how much milk does one goat produce" and got the answer in google. Same nothing from wolfram

Unless they have some intelligent system parsing web pages and finding knowledge to place in the database this is bound to fail. It's just too limited

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', 'U')nless they have some intelligent system parsing web pages and finding knowledge to place in the database this is bound to fail. It's just too limited

[ohanian]

Any idea how do I get a plot of the USA gdp in gold (instead of in us dollars)

Just trying to test out wolframalpha

[Sixstrings]

I don't think it can do that.. really, it's pretty limited.

But you know.. you don't need Wolf to answer that question. Just take current price of gold per ounce and divide that into the GDP figure and voila, GDP expressed in gold.

[jasonraymondson]

http://www62.wolframalpha.com/input/?i= ... +us+deaths

[Sixstrings]

In fairness, from some other things I've read it's clear that Professor Wolfram (think that's his name) has stressed repeatedly that this is NOT a replacement for Google, and it is not a search engine.

It's the media that hyped Wolf up as the "Google killer" and all that.

[Arthur75]

Does anybody know whether Wolfram Alpha has more or less all the power of Mathematica ? Can it be considered as an online free Mathematica version ?

Can you save your worksheets ? (in fact I think yes, but to be transfered to mathematica afterwards, didn't check if it can be "reloaded" in the online version afterwards, plus forgot the syntax quite a bit ...)

Otherwise, to me Mathematica is a great piece of code, but Stephen Wolfram has a bit "lost it" somehow, this belief in artificial intelligence ... (which is ok in itself, but quite different than saying, "we have done it", or "wait a bit and this thing will have it")

And being able to answer plenty of questions on "real world data", does indeed imply maintaining a kind of formalised wikipedia, which as everybody knows doesn't exist, and pretending that this "formalised wikipedia" can autobuild itself is a lie.