Computers Understanding Humans?
"... it understands and then computes answers to certain kinds of questions."
If what they claim is true, Wolfram Alpha may be the first usable technology that "understands" and that therefore I could accept as being an intelligent system.
This is not just a knowledge base. What Wolfram does is (to try to) understand a question in order to compute an (hopefully) accurate response based on knowledge available in built-in models.
The system is based on models meaning that it will be limited by the actual power of these models. Also it is designed to answer questions for which there is a consensus and factual answer.
It will not be able to give opinions about which social network is the best but it might be able to give a comparative GDP graph of 3 countries over a set period of time, much like an intelligent report generator could do.
The system is not a search engine although it might be able to provide sources related to its answers, in which case this would make it a very valuable tool.
I can't wait to be able to try it.
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