By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
So Google’s new semantic search has been heralded as incredibly smart - it knows what you’re thinking! Or it at least makes a guess. It’s kind of like TIVO that way, I suppose, with respect to recommendations. For me, TIVO is kind of hit-or-miss. Like my TIVO saw that I watch Star Trek and Sex in the City and thought that I would really dig Emmanuelle in Space. Amazon tends to do a little better, except for all of the boring business books it keeps trying to push at me ever since I had to buy Getting to Yes for a class on settlement negotiation.
According to Google, the new search can see that you’re searching for “principles of physics,” and will know that what you really want is “angular momentum,” “special relativity,” “big bang,” and “quantum mechanic.” Of course, I wonder what percentage of Google users are searching for “principles of physics”? PC Magazine tested it out by using a more general subject: football. But come on, we all know what most people use Google for: porn. But don’t take my word for it; here’s what Google Trends says:
And so what does Google’s semantic search think someone really wants when they’re searching for porn? … nothing. The space for suggested terms at the bottom of the page is simply blank. And the same is true for Google’s fill-in function:
Remember how a lawyer in Florida used Google trends as proof of community standards for the purpose of an obscenity charge by showing that more people search for orgies than apple pie? Well, the “obscene” words that the lawyer used - porn, orgy, and boobs - all come up with a big fat zero with the semantic search. Whereas the more innocuous terms he used - surfing and apple pie - were rewarded with helpful suggestions like “learning to surf,” “surf shop,” “apple pie crust,” and “granny smith apple pie.”
I thought that perhaps it had to do with generality so I started playing with random terms, and found that the semantic search works just fine for “science,” “music,” and even “stuff.” Of course, I also found that for “pornography,” Google suggests “playgirl.” And some more specific sexual terms (no, I’m not going to list any here, but feel free to play with it yourself) work as well. Profanity seems to be okay, too.
Well, I’m relieved that it doesn’t seem like the new search algorithm is purposely ignoring concepts considered “obscene,” but I’m also kind of at a loss as to how it actually works. Just from playing with it, I wasn’t able to find any other examples of terms that don’t provide suggestions, with the exception of really obscure things like weird acronyms or last names. But hey, I’m also sure that most people who are searching for porn can find what they want just fine without Google reading their minds. And just look how helpful the mind reading can be:
I didn’t even know that Star Trek geeks are sexy. Thanks, Google!
