Don't know how many of you have heard of this one. Hunch.com is coming soon. You may be aware of Wikianswers.com and Yahoo!Answers, but this one is different, apparently.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, these are websites that offer information and advice based on questions you enter. On the two existing sites the answers you get are selected by the engine as the best answer to your question, or in the case of Yahoo, the best answer as voted by the other registered members of the site. I suppose their purpose is to provide information for those not adept at, or too time constrained or lazy to use a search engine. One of the authors on my recommended list, Luke Rhinehart wrote novel called Dice Man that deals with this very concept. In it, the main character decides to determine all of his actions by rolls of the dice, with some outrageous consequences.
Hunch takes the idea behind the answer sites a step further. They've created an algorithm (a set of instructions for carrying out a procedure or solving a problem) that comes up with the best answer to your question based on the information you've given them when you sign up. The whole thing is designed in such a way that it learns something new every time it's used, thus making it better. Theoretically, anyway.
This project is being pitched as the democratization of decision-making. The theory behind it is that collective decision-making is better than individual decision-making.
This is where I begin to raise my eyebrows. My first thought upon learning about this theory was what about elections? Try telling the man in the street that collective decision-making is superior to individual. There would be much begging to differ is what I think. Anyway, the co-founder of Hunch.com is Caterina Fake, who is behind the online photography bank Flickr. She was named on Time magazine's world's 100 most influential people in 2006. She describes the site as creating a "taste profile" of you and people like you, which will combine with topic specific questions to deliver a hunch just for you. She expects the site to get to know the user in the simplest way possible and then help them make decisions.
Kelly Ford, marketing vice-president for the project had this to say:
"Users tend to contribute knowledge to topics they know, and extract knowledge from topics they don't know as well, that give and take is really the whole point of Hunch; to let many people benefit from the knowledge and cognitive work of others, to help people make smart, concrete decisions."
Wow, now that's some mighty spin right there. I guess that's what marketing vice-presidents are supposed to do, but let's just hold the line for a minute. People tend to contribute knowledge to topics they know? Well, yes they do. People who don't know squat about a topic, however, seldom let that stop them from putting their two cents in. I know this for certain after fifteen years of interacting in the online discussion community. I once had a battle years ago with a twit who kept insisting that Gautama Buddha was born in China, and "everybody" knows that! I informed him that Buddha was born in Nepal, and he could look it up. He wouldn't, of course, because he "knew".
So herein lies the chink in the armour of this project. It's predicated on the idea that the people whose knowledge the database will access to combine with your profile to give you your answer will all be people who know what they're talking about. I'm quite willing to bet that simply won't be true. I've seen some truly appalling answers to questions on Wiki and Yahoo that were utter nonsense, yet those answers had been voted best by the registered members, and that's what I'll wager will happen with Hunch too. The only difference will be that the answers will be tailored to your profile, which may or may not have a positive effect.
I'll be keeping an eye on this thing as it evolves, if only for the entertainment value it might hold. I wish them well, and I hope to be pleasantly surprised. I've requested entry to the beta version so I'm waiting for the fun to begin.
