Google search-engine will be "a perfect personal assistant"

[NEW DELHI] Google search guru Amit Singhal believes the search-engine of the future will be "a perfect personal assistant" - knowing what you want, when you want it.

Although people can travel to the moon's surface without leaving their armchairs, search-engine developments so far are just "baby steps" to "the holy grail of search", Mr Singhal told AFP in a rare interview.

Mr Singhal, 44, has already brought transformational change to the Internet since he took over development of Google's search engine in 2000, when the web was still relatively limited and access achingly slow.

The "Google fellow" - the title the California company bestows on its top thinkers - sees a world of "knowledge on demand" before people even know they want it, as speech recognition, language understanding, touch technology and computer advances combine.

The search engine of the future will be the "perfect personal assistant giving you benefit of all technical knowledge, enhancing your thought processes", he said.

Mr Singhal dismisses criticism by some scientists that having all the information at people's fingertips could create lazy minds, shortening attention spans and reducing capacity to remember information.

"People always worry about change," he said.

"We have to teach people to swim with the flow of technology, not swim against it," he said.

"There were worries about the Gutenberg printing press - that it would destroy the beauty of the spoken word, but we're far better off with the knowledge it's brought," he said.

"People worried TV would stop people reading books but that hasn't happened," he noted.

"The Internet has made people more productive - removing barriers to getting information," he said.

Search is at the core of Google, which fields millions of questions a day in more than 110 languages.

Mr Singhal's vision has helped make it the most visited search engine globally, as well as one of the planet's most profitable companies.

"These are immensely exciting times" with search technology "going through an exponential period" of change, he said.

"Ultimately I believe this will give mankind healthier, happier lives, not just through wearable technology, but the sum total of information that will be within our reach to improve lives."

AFP