The Google phenomenon also spreads to the field of academic research
Avi Blizovsky
With the penetration of Google into Israel, the interest in this extraordinary phenomenon is increasing. The book "The Wisdom of the Crowd" was recently published by "Hebrew" publishing house in cooperation with Keter publishing house. By author James Sorowetsky. Among the many examples, the book also includes the story of Google: here is the quote (p. 34, from Jude Sheba's English):
"Google started in 1998, at a time when Yahoo seemed to have a hold on the search business - and if Yahoo falters, Alta-Vista or Lycus will remain in the arena, but within a few years Google has become the search engine of choice for all Internet users, simply because Google finds the right page more quickly. Google's way of doing this - scanning 3 billion web pages - is based on the wisdom of crowds.
At Google, they keep the details of the technology a secret, but they reveal that at the heart of the Google system is the PageRank algorithm, which was first defined by the company's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998, in an article that is now legendary entitled "Anatomy of a Search Engine Hypertextual Web Pages in Cana A large size." This algorithm is a calculation method that allows all web pages to decide which of them are more relevant to a certain search. Here is Google's wording:
PageRank relies on the unique democratic nature of the web, by using its vast network of links as an indicator of the "value" of a particular site. Basically, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a "voice" from page A to page B. But Google doesn't just look at the amount of "votes" or links a page receives; It also analyzes the pointing page. Votes from pages that are themselves "important" have greater value and they help make other pages "important"." (And here is the quote from the book).
What exactly is the wisdom of crowds - or as some also call it the wisdom of the swarm (and among the examples from nature there are also stories about the way a swarm of bees finds the field of flowers with the most nectar). Under the right conditions, a decision made by a large group may be an intelligent decision, and often wiser than that of the smartest people in the group. This is a branch of the economy that, in Sorovitsky's opinion, has not received the respect it deserves. This phenomenon is also counterintuitive, but it turns out that it exists. At one of the agricultural fairs in the 19th century, visitors were asked to bet on the weight of an ox. Although among the gamblers there were professional bull breeders, and maybe also people who knew the real answer, but most people just guessed. Researcher Francis Galton believed that the average result of a guess by a few wise and many fools would be far from reality but was surprised that the weight was almost accurate (in fact the average was 542.9 and the weight of the bull 543.4 kg).
Another type of crowd wisdom is known to all of us - the stock market. There, too, the masses know when to enter a stock and when to exit, as soon as there are rumors of any change in the company. On the contrary, the exchanges even take punitive measures against those who use inside information. It turns out that even the bets in betting clubs sometimes reflect the final result (for example, regarding Oscar wins). In short, a thought-provoking book.
Intermediate: The algorithm is only a small part
And in the same matter, Oren Etzioni, a researcher in the field of search engines from the University of Washington in Seattle, who has signed three startups (one of them Israeli) gave a lecture this week about future search engines to students, faculty and graduates at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. In response to my question regarding Google's engine, Etzioni said: "Google's famous algorithm is far less determining of their quality than people think. Their search consists of many patents that they do not disclose, what is clear is that the original algorithm is a small part. For example, Google attaches importance to the words that are written in the description of the page in the place from which the page is linked (
Anchortext) "When you make a link to my home page, write something like Oren Etzioni's home page on it. They discovered that the short words that appear on the link are an excellent summary of what is on the linked page."
Etzioni says that Google's strength is due to the fact that at the time, the other sites believed that search was a commodity and even outsourced their search engine, when Yahoo, Lycus and others turned their home page into portals by adding news, horoscopes, etc. Google came and invested huge sums in a search engine and therefore harvested the entire market.
Etzioni and a group led by him are currently researching how to give search engines artificial intelligence so that they can understand the answer to a query and extract it from all the web pages that today surfers receive a link to. They should actually "understand" the content of the pages. He estimates that it will take another ten years before search engines can reach such intelligence.
Intermediate: query to Google Israel
And again in the same matter: why does Google's news algorithm, which is supposed to take and gather together the news on the same topic, creates islands of 2-3 news items each? For example - the news from the Dan David Award ceremony at Tel Aviv University appeared the day after the ceremony (22/5) in at least two different files? Earlier, with the passing of Prof. Yuval Neman, almost all the news appeared individually?
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~484948358~~~42&SiteName=hayadan
