Wolfram Alpha

[Hoop]

I could have added this thread anywhere on ST.

As I see it Wolfram Alpha will change our lives....this is not another "run of the mill search engine".

From an investor point of view I have already typed in Option pricing within Wolfram research dept as the Wolfram Alpha is not yet running for the general public (launching sometime this month). The response was "level 10" on my WOW factor. The only problem is I need the free Mathematica 7 player to be interactive with the web-page that came up on my screen so to do my computations...unfortunately I seem to have a problem in trying to download the free player file..any help in this area will be appreciated.

A demo of what Wolfram Alpha can do (http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html)

From watching that Demo...Just imagine typing in Investment strategies for a bear market and being told everything you need to know.

or

typing in
the theoretical price of Pike river coal options PRCOA on 15/05/2009

or
Is FBU shares under-priced or overpriced

From an investment point of view giving people more info data and access to AI intelligence will result in an upscale of investment skills and create a new investing environment. Stockbrokers may have to free up their information and expertise from private clients to public domain in order to compete. Web-sites at this moment giving free but limited TA charts may have to change to meet this new environment...the world is going to spin faster ..so to grab a rare opportunity or react to a indicator change we will have to go from being quick to super quick.

We are about to witness a huge leap in information and info/computational availability to the public via internet.

Industrial revolution ..Technological Revolution ....(AI Revolution**???)....

**Technological Singularity event (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity) before the year 2050 does not seem like science fiction anymore.

Wolfram Alpha search engine (http://www.wolframalpha.com/index.html)

[Phaedrus]

WOW!!!!!!!! Where do I sign?

[Stranger_Danger]

I get free ginsu knives with that, right?

[pedro.nz]

Being 60+ something, I am still constantly amazed at the growing speed in technology in all its forms and keep wondering what is going to be available in even 10 years time. Even though I am in the IT game myself, I am still blown away at times with these sorts of advances.

[STRAT]

From watching that Demo...Just imagine typing in Investment strategies for a bear market and being told everything you need to know.
mmm,
Seems to me you will be told everything Wolfram knows which may not be everything there is to know. Bloody well hope not anyway. If every one uses the same system the system wont work. In order for there to be winners playing the stock market there must be loosers.

Just a thought

[axion]

Wow I'm pretty blown away by that.

However, it seems to me the things you used as examples of what it could be used for aren't particularly likely, or they might not give useful information, because as far as I can tell it just uses the data it can find and runs computations, but what data would it use to work out if shares were overpriced, or underpriced, and what metric would it choose? (considering a lot of people have many different opinions on the way we determine if something is overpriced).

It seems to me it works well for things it can be objective about, like the gdp of france/gdp of italy -- it has all the data and there is no ambiguity about it -- but for those more subjective questions it seems to me it wouldn't do too well.

And as for the theoretical future value of something in the future? Hmmm... I'm not too sure, once again the way someone works out the theoretical future value differs completey from person to person, and this thing would have to decide how it would do it. Would it fit a linear trend line and then just workout where it would be at time = x (and over what time period would it do the trendline?)? Would it look at past data and try and fit a non-linear pattern to it? Would it use some other method, like a discounted cash flow analysis for time x?


The whole thing is very interesting, but I can see it becoming a pretty big problem for teachers/lecturers of math-based subjects especially.

[note: of course if you wanted to workout the theoretical value of something saying you would like to use x method to do it, I guess it could do that--or if it doesn't now, that it could eventually do that]


In order for there to be winners playing the stock market there must be loosers.


What? That's not true at all FWIW...

[trackers]

mmm,
Seems to me you will be told everything Wolfram knows which may not be everything there is to know. Bloody well hope not anyway. If every one uses the same system the system wont work. In order for there to be winners playing the stock market there must be loosers.

Just a thought

Yes, my thoughts too.

In addition, my reading of Wolfram over the last couple of months or so was that (initially, at least) every single answer has been provided by an expert?

So its not like they've got a super computer just sitting there crunching variables or anything..?

Seems like a step in the right direction, but I think we're still a loooong way off what this is really trying to achieve

[pedro.nz]

Arrow Energy stats

[STRAT]

I wana see what Wolfram says Arrow will be worth Christmas time.

also
VPE
ITC
BUL
WCU
LMP to name just a few :D

[AMR]

Unfortunately it couldn't recognise BOW energy. There are two towns in the states called Bow and Energy and the distance between them was 1595km.

[Snapper]

I just asked it the meaning of life. You can probably guess what it said.............................................4 2!

[trackers]

I just asked it the meaning of life. You can probably guess what it said.............................................4 2!

that was my first question too :) The rest were all same as AA: "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input"... Yawn, good attempt but a bit of a fail.

[STRAT]

I just asked it the meaning of life. You can probably guess what it said.............................................4 2!lol I will be content just knowing its not going to become self aware and want to take over the world :p

[lakedaemonian]

Not bad so far.....hopefully it gets better from here!

Although the post about it becoming "self aware" what with the new Terminator movie coming out gives me the willies.

[Hoop]

Not bad so far.....hopefully it gets better from here!

Although the post about it becoming "self aware" what with the new Terminator movie coming out gives me the willies.

I hope so too...rather disappointed so far.

Still It a baby and is learning ..asking a hard question about something in NZ and not in USA and AI runs to mum(USA) and I get USA facts back.
Highly annoying.....so just for fun I thought I would give it a combination of "Stranger Danger" and "Tough Love and typed " Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input...that's because your tiny AI brain will not let you expand out of the USA to the world where the other 80% of us Humans live. in its little box and clicked it to see what action I got.



Response...Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input...


Obviously...having a conversation to a friendly AI in 2009 is like talking to a brick wall.




I thought I would ask the inferior AI model Google the same question " Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input...that's because your tiny AI brain will not let you expand out of the USA to the world where the other 80% of us Humans live........glad I did!!!! the sites a got were a HOOT


Here is the first page of Google results (1 to 10) in black

1...Brain « Ignorance Is Futile! Hmmm.. the Daleks told me that Resistance is futile ...Hoop's human brain is confused now

2...THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2006 What is your dangerous idea?
hmmm...which one do you want? :D:D:D:D

3..Next Major Technology [Archive] - Bad Astronomy and Universe Today ...78 posts - Last post: 18 Oct 2005No sir Swift, we do not have any such technology. I am not so sure that it violates laws of physics
Hmmm..Seems like he's not going to own up guys ..he's an oxymoron.


4..Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » The Singularity Is Far But AI will feel very hard, if you don't know exactly how to do it yourself
Hmmm....Will AI feel very soft instead, if I know how to do it?

5..No Mutants Allowed - Your Post Nuclear News Center!Outside of Dogmeat (who is optional) you can have exactly 1 other human companion,
Hmmm.... OK, that sounds fair...can I have Batman as my other human companion?

6..Future Hi: Wild Speculation Archives Not even if I do it really quickly. That's logical for us in space.
Hmmm...doing it in space:cool::cool:...."Space the final Frontier":D.... Where do I sign?:D ...Ohhh:eek:....Excuse me?... referring to that " 1 other human companion" law.. can I change my human companion?:o

7..index.txt Nobody will do it for us. If there's good in the world it's because we ... That's why Batman is our most human hero.
Hmmm ... Is he? :p Personally, I rather have a human heroine.;)

8..Minding the Planet: Wild Speculation A system such as what I am proposing will provide us with a valuable map for ...... Check it out! After this your brain will need a rest, and possibly a ..... Please do not do this, unless you are really stupid, in which case, go right ahead.
Hmmm..tempting ;);):cool:

9..Roger Ebert's Journal: ArchivesThe brain transmits tiny electrical signals. Eventually Twits will be able to .....
Hmmm, do what:confused::confused: .......Twitter?

10..What I Hate About Your Programming Language | O'Reilly MediaAnd isn't the world full with memory overflow vulnerabilities. ... Unfortunately commercial environments do not let you change your major project language ..
Hmmm.. memory overflow:confused: ...nope, no problem there...... can't even remember where I left my glasses an hour ago:confused::confused:

[777]

Article in NZ Herald giving WA a D minus....

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10574407

[dragonz]

Good one Hoop :D:D:D:D:D