Google’s Knowledge Graphs: making Search intelligent

As the Internet becomes readily available and continues to play an integral role in our everyday life, Google has been improving its algorithms to further personalize the search experience.

At an event in Kampala, Google’s Uganda Country manager Ham Namakajjo explained the company’s latest search feature, Google Knowledge graphs.

The graph is made up of a database of over 500 million real-world people, places and things as well as 3.5 billion defining attributes and connections which aims to understand people’s search queries and provide some added information in a box on the right hand side of the search results page.

Namakajjo says that the perfect search engine should understand exactly what you mean and give you back exactly what you want.

Amit Singhal, Google’s search chief has described the addition of the knowledge graph as a “quantum leap” towards search connecting to real life requests and moving away from key words.

Namakajjo goes on to say that with the Knowledge Graph project, they have started teaching Google search what real-world things are; everything from roller coasters, to famous artists, to bodies of water and how they’re all connected.

“But in the future we want to offer a computer that works just like the one in Star Trek – it should be smart enough to tell you: ‘You’re going to London tomorrow, the weather is rainy, bring an umbrella.’ Or ‘Here’s an article about your favourite football player that you didn’t know about.’ Imagine actually having an intelligent conversation with your computer,” Namakajjo adds.

He however says that for that to happen, Google needs to get smarter. It needs to “think” more along the wavelength of people. And that’s what we’re trying to build.

Today the Internet has become a vital tool in every aspect of life and the Google Knowledge Graph project is a step in the right direction in as far as making knowledge accessible is concerned.