Comments on: Learning networks are about social search http://bitsandbikes.aribadernatal.com/2010/02/07/learning-networks-are-social-search/ Compute, commute. Rinse and repeat. Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:05:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Ari http://bitsandbikes.aribadernatal.com/2010/02/07/learning-networks-are-social-search/#comment-1327 Ari Sat, 10 Sep 2011 13:56:18 +0000 http://blog.greaterbayshell.com/?p=248#comment-1327 and... <a HREF="http://blog.vark.com/?p=379" rel="nofollow">closed.</A> and… closed.

]]> By: ari http://bitsandbikes.aribadernatal.com/2010/02/07/learning-networks-are-social-search/#comment-355 ari Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:32:00 +0000 http://blog.greaterbayshell.com/?p=248#comment-355 and... <a HREF="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-acquires-aardvark.html" rel="nofollow">sold.</A><BR/> <IMG SRC="http://blog.vark.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/googlevark.jpg" WIDTH="275" HEIGHT="113"> and… sold.

]]> By: ari http://bitsandbikes.aribadernatal.com/2010/02/07/learning-networks-are-social-search/#comment-351 ari Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:02:29 +0000 http://blog.greaterbayshell.com/?p=248#comment-351 One other observation: <strong>Social search is human computation.</strong> While I'm having trouble pinning down the reference right now, I'm fairly certain that I've seen or heard Luis von Ahn describe <a HREF="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~biglou/research.html" rel="nofollow">human computation</A> as a technique by which an AI-hard problem can be reduced to an HCI problem. After reading this paper, I think it's fair to say that Aardvark is an attempt at doing exactly that. The piece that I'm not understanding is the <I>why</I>: Why bother responding to a question? Most HC applications that I've read about seem to offer something compelling to the human in exchange for their computation: cash money (<a HREF="https://www.mturk.com/" rel="nofollow">MTurk</A>), fun (<a HREF="http://gwap.com/" rel="nofollow">gwap</A>), porn (<a HREF="http://vonahn.blogspot.com/2009/03/porn-or-not-dot-com.html" rel="nofollow">pornornot</A>), not getting your form submission rejected yet again (<a HREF="http://www.recaptcha.net/" rel="nofollow">recaptcha</A>). So what is the compelling motivator with Aardvark? Perhaps it's something more subtle: to show others what you know, to help a friend of a friend, or to voice an opinion (even if just to an audience of one). If you have thoughts on this, please share. One other observation:

Social search is human computation. While I’m having trouble pinning down the reference right now, I’m fairly certain that I’ve seen or heard Luis von Ahn describe human computation as a technique by which an AI-hard problem can be reduced to an HCI problem. After reading this paper, I think it’s fair to say that Aardvark is an attempt at doing exactly that. The piece that I’m not understanding is the why: Why bother responding to a question? Most HC applications that I’ve read about seem to offer something compelling to the human in exchange for their computation: cash money (MTurk), fun (gwap), porn (pornornot), not getting your form submission rejected yet again (recaptcha). So what is the compelling motivator with Aardvark? Perhaps it’s something more subtle: to show others what you know, to help a friend of a friend, or to voice an opinion (even if just to an audience of one). If you have thoughts on this, please share.

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