At this morning’s Search Engine Strategies session, Google’s Craig Silverstein shared his vision of the future of search.
A few years ago Silverstein gave a speech on how search engines will become ubiquitous. He predicted users would be able to talk to engines and the engines would talk back. Now, he says, that prediction closely resembles what we are seeing in today’s world of search.
Silverstein is now changing his vision of the future of search to an even more bizarre scenario. In a speech closely resembling a Star Trek episode, he shared his new prediction of search moving towards the existence of search pets hundreds of years from now. These search pets would not necessarily be like a pet dog, but more like “a genetically engineered beast.”
Adding to the science fiction, he believes search pets will be able to understand emotions and allow people to search for things that aren’t necessarily facts. For example, searchers can ask search pets, “What did Bob mean when he said that?”
Helping increase and enhance communication, search pets will understand the way the world works and the way humans interact. Search pets will be able to determine and untangle what searchers mean politically and socially.
They might help take some pressure off doctors. Doctors typically just analyze and treat symptoms, which can sometimes cause problems. For example, SARS closely resembles other illnesses, making it highly difficult to diagnose and treat. Search pets could potentially help doctors more effectively diagnose problems.
Search pets could also help out in the bedroom. Take marital issues, for example. Guys, when you ask your honey what’s wrong and she says nothing – there IS somehting wrong and it’s NOT nothing. Silverstein sees search pets as being able to find to the correct answer to these tricky questions.
Will searching as we know it be completely replaced by search pets?
“We’ll still search for facts,” he says, “but in all likelyhood the facts will be contained in a brain implant.”
Basically, he predicts people will eventually have search functions implanted directly into their brains.
So, what would you think about having Google implanted into your brain?
Discuss the bizarre possibility of search pets, brain implants, and the way they could change how humans interact and communicate with each other on WebProWorld, your forum for e-Business.
Murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
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