Legal Research

Now We’ve Got 2 Decision Engines, Plus a Discovery Engine, and a Computational Knowledge Engine

Hunch, a new Decision Engine, has launched. (Coverage here, here, and here.) How’s it work? Here’s what the site’s “About” page says:

“In 10 questions or less, Hunch will offer you a great solution to your problem, concern or dilemma, on hundreds of topics. Hunch’s answers are based on the collective knowledge of the entire Hunch community, narrowed down to people like you, or just enough like you that you might be mistaken for each other in a dark room. Hunch is designed so that every time it’s used, it learns something new. That means Hunch’s hunches are always getting better.”

I don’t want to teach a machine. I just want an answer.

We have a spam filter at Jenkins. When it was implemented, it was a mess. It flagged emails I was looking for, from people I knew. Randomly. Time-sensitive emails. Stuff I needed. When I asked why, I was told that I had to teach the filter which were the good emails and which were the spam. After about 200 messages or so, it would be a lot smarter.

I turned the spam filter off. It’s easier and quicker for me to wade through my own inbox.

I know I sound like a cranky old fart — Hey kids! Get off my lawn! — so to make amends I’ve added Hunch to our Next-Gen Search Engines page.

Full post as published by Jenkins Webblits on June 15, 2009 (boomark / email).