Suppose you could ask your encyclopedia to not only spit out facts, but to perform an analysis with those facts or compute the answers to a math problem for you. A free Web site set to go live this month promises to do all this. Its called WolframAlpha and you can watch a demo of it and read a write up from the Chronicles of Higher Education at the link below. But be aware the video is of a lecture at Harvard and it runs for more than 1.5 hours.

WolframAlpha sounds promising but I wonder whether it will fall prey to the same problems that defeat artificial intelligence programs in the 1980s: lack of context. Back then, Machine Design reported on an AI presentation wherein the presenter explained the problem this way:

Suppose you had an exchange with one of the medical diagnosis programs then becoming available that went like this:

Today's date: January 1987

Patient's name: 1983 Chevy

Does the patient have red spots?  Yes.

Conclusion: The child has measles.

Time will tell whether WolframAlpha has some of the same problems. Here is the link:

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3766/physicist-set-to-unveil-wolframalpha-web-site-a-new-kind-of-research-helper?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en