AI (Artificial intelligence) has the potential to enhance Internet searches, but obstacles still must be overcome, a speaker stressed at a technical conference Thursday hosted by IBM.

Entitled "The New AI: New Paradigms for Using Computers Workshop," the event at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. featured a presentation by Oren Etzioni, director of the Turing Center at the University of Washington. Multiple AI and machine learning projects also were highlighted at the event.

Etzioni emphasized more intelligent Internet- searching. "We're going to see in the next five years next-generation search systems based on things like Open IE (Information Extraction)," Etzioni said. Open IE involves techniques for mapping sentences to logical expressions and could apply to arbitrary sentences on the Web, he said.

Etzioni cited work on Softbot intelligent interface technology. But he noted issues, such as a Softbot that might be given the goal of deleting a file but instead deletes an old server log. Using contemporary humor to illustrate another potential problem, he even referred to a Doonesbury cartoon where a search for milk has the Softbot buying luggage along with the milk, against what the searcher desired.

But solutions for enhanced search are emerging, including semantic tractability, in which simple sentences can be understood, and the clarifying of dialogs that could have double meanings, said Etzioni.

Natural language interfaces have been preferred as the way to talk to Softbots, but these must be reliable, he said. Etzioni also cited work on the KnowItAll project, which is about extracting high-quality information from text on the Web. Another effort, TextRunner, pertains to open information extraction and is meant to serve as a foundation for a massive knowledge base.

An organizer of Thursday's event shied away from the term "artificial intelligence."

"[The term] artificial intelligence has fallen out of favor. You're not hearing about expert systems anymore," said Stefan Nusser, senior manager of the IBM User Systems & Experience Research Group. "But right now, there is sort of a re-emergence of some of these methodologies."

The event also showcased several projects in the AI and machine learning spaces. These included:

* Using AI to Identify Interesting Assertions. With this University of Washington project, machine learning is combined with human computation to identify which assertions extracted from the Internet are more interesting. TextRunner is used in this project as well as content creation sites like Wikipedia.
* Data Visualizations and Continuous Interfaces. This Yahoo effort features various applications offering advanced visualizations of data, such as FAA flight paths.
* Examining Obstacles to Software Developer Adoption of Statistical Machine Learning. This University of Washington and Intel project involves studies to provide the basis for development tools to better support software developers applying statistical machine learning within applications.