Wolfram|Alpha (also written WolframAlpha or Wolfram Alpha) is an answer-engine developed by Wolfram Research. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, instead of providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer. It was announced in March 2009 by British mogul Stephen Wolfram, and was released to the public on May 15, 2009.

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  1. Adnan,

    Readers should be provided with unauthorized views on technology so that they can understand the full implications of such technology and may use their freedom to make informed choices about whether to use such technology or not.

    Let Wolfram do whatever they want. It is total transparency and open dialog that I seek.

    PS. Here’s a great video interview of Jacques Ellul discussing the Betrayal by Technology.
    http://www.archive.org/details/TheBetrayalByTechnologyAPortraitOfJacquesEllul1992

  2. Dear BerteGoode
    We have the divene gift of naming things……..Wolfram is asserting his version…………why are you in fear…………..you have the complete freedom of creating your own……….

  3. The wiki page linked to says:

    “Wolfram|Alpha is an answer-engine developed by Wolfram Research. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might.”

    The system “computing the answer from structured data”. Hence, whoever controls the “structured data” (ie. inputs to the algorithm) and the algorithm (ie. the computational part of the system that “computes the answer” from “factual queries”) controls the answers provided. This is NOT a neutral objective system. It is inherently controlled, as the system is designed with some level of bias. Who controls that bias controls the answers and therefore impacts the thinking of the systems users. No way around it.

    Now, my next question is, who’s behind the financial backers of this company? I’m not necessarily interested in the direct investors, but I’d certainly like to know who and what is behind the first financial layer.

    PS. I’m not familiar with Mathematica.

  4. Bert:

    I was surprised to see how closed it was as a system. For that reason, I would assume it would not be robust enough for users. On the other hand Wolfram built Mathematica, which when I last experienced it long ago, was a pretty amazing piece of software,

    Catherine

  5. This is hysterical on so many levels… it’s just astounds me how these social planners are so arrogant as to ram these techniques down the publics throat expecting that the public will not notice. The only logical reason I can find for their arrogance is that it is essential to retain the technocracy’s (ie. bureaucracy) loyalty, for if the technocracy ever sensed that the public understood the game being played on them, then the technocracy would loose confidence in the game and bugger-off. Without the technocracy to carry-out the elites plans, the elite’s power is rendered moot. So, what do we have here.

    First, the name. Wolf-Ram (ie. Wolf – Sheep). I wonder who the “wolf” is and who the “sheep” is intended to be in their paradigm? Anyone buy into my guess that we, the public, are supposed to be the sheep? Are we, the public, now supposed to run to the embracing warm clutches of the Wolf, is that how they mock us this time?

    Second, the technology. This is what can be referred to as an “expert system,” whereby a user types in a question and is provided with a response as designed by the owners of this system. As you can imagine, the owners of the system can program the responses any which way they desire. They can modify response over time so that new-younger question-askers receive different responses. They can program the system so that people of different nationalities, races, colors, etc. receive different answers to the same questions. It is obviously not enough for the social engineers to control all search engines, now they are seeking to disintermediate their own search technologies for new ones that simple spit-out “answers”, obviating the need for the human to do any thinking or research of their own.

    Is this really where technology is taking us? Where are the moral and ethical debates around the deployment of these techniques? What is the end-game here… is it even up for discussion? Or are we supposed to simply acquiesce to technology as progress?

    So many words from Jacques Ellul are appropriate here, but I will leave this comment with one brief excerpt from his book, The Technological Society.

    “Technology will not tolerate any judgment being passed on it. Or rather: technologists do not easily tolerate people expressing an ethical or moral judgment on what they do. But the expression of ethical, moral and spiritual judgments is actually the highest freedom of mankind. So I am robbed of my highest freedom. So whatever I say about technology and the technologists themselves is of no importance to them. It won’t deter them from what they are doing. They are now set in their course. They are so conditioned. For a technologist is not free. He is conditioned. By his training, by his experiences and by the objective which he must reach. He is not free in the execution of his task. He does what technology demands of him. That’s why I think freedom and technology contradict one another.”

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