Why Wolfram Alpha Not Becoming a Google Killer Turned Out to be
a Good Thing  The Guardian has a great article about Wolfram
Alpha and Stephen Wolfram, the genius behind it. Turns out, his
dream was never to kill Google (back in '93, Sergey Brin worked
for Wolfram!) but rather try to create the science fiction
people once dreamt of (think HAL).  And after a rocky start,
Wolfram Alpha has started to find its way. People searching
sorta "get" it now, asking more specific questions and not
expecting Google-like results, and the computer answering also
sorta "gets" people, being able to narrow down what is
computable information in the questions people ask. Wolfram
Alpha's system needs to continue to improve to be more than an
insanely powerful calculator but Wolfram knows that even if it
eventually reaches his lofty dreams, it won't replace us:
"There was a time when we had to cut feathers to make our own
pens. Gradually more levels of civilisation and automation
happen, and this is another such layer," he says