• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, January 11, 2013

Google's Director of Engineering Ray Kurzweil, hired in December, wants to build a search engine that integrates artificial intelligence (AI). He envisions a world where search queries get answered without being asked.

Kurzweil, an AI expert, believes in hierarchical ideas. In his recent book, "How To Create A Mind," he explains how it works. The hurdle is hierarchical language, and how the brain processes language in a hierarchical way, depending on the stimuli during key stages of development, reports the SingularityHub.

Google's quest to organize the world's information, based on semantic content, isn't intended to remain a page of words. Computers, for the most part, have not been able to differentiate between words and meaning, Kurzweil said in an interview. A more intelligent version of natural language processing will give computers the ability to understand the context on the page.

Google gives Kurzweil "vast resources" to continue his research. It's unclear what the size of the team is helping Kurzweil, but he anticipates the resources will increase as the project grows in complexity. The system will be built in hierarchies.

"You are what you think, and that's a key," he says.

The goal is to apply the content to core Google projects and technology. Kurzweil believes the technology will not only keep track of calendar events and searches, but conversations, perhaps text messages, and emails sent and read. It will identify the words to semantically know specific questions and concerns to push information to the phone.

While search will move past identifying keywords to understand synonyms, Kurzweil said search engines will need to do a better job of understanding intent.