It’s all about context

Semantic search seeks to improve search accuracy by understanding the searcher’s intent and the contextual meaning of terms as they appear in the searchable dataspace, whether on the Web or within a closed system, to generate more relevant results. Semantic search systems consider various points including context of search, location, intent, variation of words, synonyms, generalized and specialized queries, concept matching and natural language queries to provide relevant search results. Major web search engines like Google and Bing incorporate some elements of semantic search. (from Wikipedia)

For the common good we should get familiar with semantic search, as it will soon change the way we acquire knowledge and learn. In this article in Forbes it is illustrated a a very interesting perspective on how our interaction with recent AI based technology is shifting our methodology of learning. The metaphor which I think works the best, as explained in the article, is to consider current search engines as funnels. We search for something and get a narrowed list of answers. The more the search engines knows about us, the better the answer is accurate. However human brain is great on pattern recognition; we are capable of linking different elements together – which includes our own background, our expectation, our bias – that affect what we are looking for. In the book Diffusion of Innovation Everett M. Rogers defines information as a process through which we reduce uncertainties when in an unfamiliar context. In other words we search to get a better picture of the context; we are not naturally looking for a specific answer, but an answer located in a context that makes sense for us.

Hence Google knowledge graph-based search. It is a search process, introduced in 2012, which looks at the context, at the user, at the location, the language, i.e. the context the search happens.

However when we speak to Siri, Google Now, Cortana, Alexa, etc we don’t get anymore a series of links, but a single answer. We are no longer allowed to select what we want to read, either the source. According to the Forbes article this system will reshuffle the information business.

Nonetheless in this post I would like to focus more on education and research. Looking for different kinds sources, connecting/disconnecting them, prooving the “truth” are actions at the core of research and knowledge. If we have a single platform that provides answers, will we be still entitled to understand where information comes from? My provocation to this is the following: context and mapping.

My guess on how human being will still find ways to be curious, investigative, to challenge assumption and axioms (for Google  we would be probably still living in a flat earth, if the answer was provided by algorithms that assemble information) will be the skills on understanding and compare different contexts and map answers in a bigger picture. Basically flipping the way Google intends to map its search engine and use it for exactly the opposite. We may be able to funnel research the other way around.

 

When Design is the “Shell” of Technology

One of the projects exhibited at the Oslo Architecture Biennale – which is described in The Guardian – tells the story of Mark and the experience he provides through Airbnb. Mark’s homes stage family everyday living. You will find family’s pictures and anything that will satisfy your imaginary of renting a family home. Well, it’s all fake. Mark’s business hacked the Airbnb’s keystone value: dwelling the everyday of anybody’s home with all the memories, artefacts and memorabilia that each of us collect along our life.

Airbnb’s strategy, indeed, uses the human’s perceived meaning of intimacy into a business value (which Mark flipped into the core of his business). The more the host makes you feel home, the more the accommodation will provide the experience – and good rating- you are expecting to live visiting the place, whether you ever been there or not. Intimacy is no longer a private sphere of our being, which takes shape through a series of objects we relate to. Intimacy is something you can sell. Your life goes on market (and rated), as much your image does with selfies.

Airbnb is not the only company “looking after” people’s interiors – with the collection of objects and memories; Amazon and Google are also on the same page. Amazon Alexa is indeed an artificial intelligence capable of sensing the environment. Alexa learns from you, about your taste, what you read, the music you listen, the place you visit, the friends you see,.., the list is quite long; Alexa absorbs your life, so that it can “suggest” Amazon what to suggest to you. Whether in Airbnb your intimacy mimics the social masks you need to wear to perform the character your house is placed in (romantic, modern, family, etc), Alexa moulds the character (you indeed).

Similarly Google is shifting its business approach by changing what made them very successful: search engine. According to this article in the MIT Technology Review Google is ready to introduce Assistant to the public. Assistant is a “third person” that reads you and the environment you are in (physical and digital) to make suggestions. The ambition is to turn Google search from a general page you can type in to a custom, interactive character that suggests information, whether asked or not. Assistant can enter a conversation you are having with friends and make suggestions on the topics of discussion.

Alexa, Assistant and Airbnb make design the Shell (under Venturi, Scott Brown, Izenour’s perspective) of technology, at different scale of course. What does design propose more than decorating technology’s performances (both aesthetically and technically)? Is there any value that design adds, besides embodying sensors that can connect you to the Internet? Interiors and products are interfaces at different scales that provide information. We interact with spaces and objects through algorithms that “learn” our behavior to loop information back to the private company, then us. What we achieve is a chewed digested information. If interiors will be probably designed to satisfy the best AI scanning (as currently shopping mall are designed to give shops the most of visibility) and objects to keep us “busy”, what can design do? Probably I need to define what I mean with design. The human passion for making and working with materials, thinking about mechanism, sorting problems, satisfying needs. Does design still performe a service to society?