People around the globe make more than 3.5 billion Google searches every day, and a small percentage of these are queries that have never been made before.

In an attempt to handle these obscure and niche searches, Google has developed an artificial intelligence system called RankBrain.

Not only can it accurately find the most appropriate sites to match the query, it also learns from its mistakes to make future results more accurate.

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In an attempt to handle obscure and niche searches, Google has developed an artificial intelligence system called RankBrain. Not only can it accurately find the most appropriate sites to match the query, it also learns from its mistakes to make future results more accurate

During tests, Google engineers who design the algorithms correctly ranked 70 per cent of sites from a range of search terms while RankBrain achieved a score of 80 per cent.

Speaking to Jack Clark at Bloomberg, senior research scientist Greg Corrado revealed that around 15 per cent of its daily searches have not been seen before.

Google searches are ranked based on 'hundreds' of signals including location, key words, the site's ranking and more.

Its current technology relies on 'discoveries and insights that people in information retrieval have had,' explained Mr Corrado. 'But there’s no learning.'

HOW DOES RANKBRAIN WORK? Google searches are ranked based on 'hundreds' of signals including location, key words, the site's ranking and more. These signals are gathered by algorithms created by Google engineers. This current technology relies on discoveries and insights that people in information retrieval have had, but there isn't any learning involved. RankBrain instead uses AI to turn words into so-called 'vectors' the computer can understand more easily. If it sees a word it doesn't recognise, it takes an 'educated guess' at what it could mean, based on other words and phrases that may have a similar meaning. The system then filters the results and presents the most appropriate links to the person making the search. Every time it makes these guesses, it monitors how the person making the searches responds to the results and can adjust its filtering process accordingly. Advertisement

RankBrain instead uses AI to turn words into so-called 'vectors' the computer can understand more easily.

If it sees a word it doesn't recognise, it takes an 'educated guess' at what it could mean, based on other words and phrases that may have a similar meaning.

The system then filters the results and presents the most appropriate links to the person making the search.

Every time it makes these guesses, it monitors how the person making the searches responds to the results and can adjust its filtering process accordingly.

Mr Corrado didn't reveal how many search queries had been served by RankBrain but referred to it as a 'very large fraction' over the past few months.

RankBrain is the latest use of AI at Google.

In June, researchers from the tech giant trained a computer to have conversations before posing a series of questions about technical support, general knowledge and even philosophy.

Called the 'conversation model', it was built by Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le, research scientists at Google Brain.

They used what's known as a sequence-to-sequence framework in which the model converses by predicting the next sentence in a conversation.

Depending on the questions being asked, it can gather information from various sets of data, either based on an IT helpdesk manual, a movie and subtitles database, book quotes and so on.

RankBrain is the latest use of AI at Google. In June, researchers from the tech giant trained a computer to have conversations before posing a series of questions about technical support, general knowledge and even philosophy. Called the 'conversation model', it used context to predicte the next sentence (illustrated)

Earlier this week Facebook revealed it was taking on Google by indexing every single public post made on the site - which currently stand at 2 trillion. The site said its users are already making over 1.5 billion searches per day and it will now start serving personalised results to these users, based on their privacy settings

For example, during a technical support question and answer session the machine was able to diagnose a problem with a user's virtual privacy network, and solve the problem of a browser crashing.

It was then tasked with having an everyday conversation in which it asked the human questions about themselves and responded to the answers.

Once it had been trained, researchers asked more complex and advanced questions that either involved using a larger database for the general knowledge quiz, to more obscure answers such as the meanings of morality, ethics and life.

And it had mixed results.

QUESTIONS POSED TO THE GOOGLE BOT In June, researchers from the tech giant trained a computer to have conversations before posing a series of questions about technical support, general knowledge and even philosophy. Called the 'conversation model', it was built by Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le, research scientists at Google Brain. They used what's known as a sequence-to-sequence framework in which the model converses by predicting the next sentence in a conversation. Depending on the questions being asked, it can gather information from various sets of data, either based on an IT helpdesk manual, a movie and subtitles database, book quotes and so on. Philosophical Q&A Human: What is the purpose of life? Machine: To serve the greater good Human: What is the purpose of living? Machine: To live forever Human: What is the purpose of existence? Machine: To find out what happens when we get to the planet Earth Human: Where are you now? Machine: I'm in the middle of nowhere Human: What is the purpose of dying? Machine: To have a life Human: What is the purpose of being intelligent? Machine: To find out what it is Human: What is the purpose of emotions? Machine: I don't know General knowledge Q&A Human: Who is Skywalker? Machine: He is a hero Human: Who is Bill Clinton? Machine: He's a billionaire Human: Is sky blue or black? Machine: Blue Human: Does a cat have a tail? Machine: Yes Human: Does a cat have a wing? Machine: No Human: Can a cat fly? Machine: No Human: How many legs does a cat have? Machine: Four, I think Human: How many legs does a spider have? Machine: Three, I think Human: How many legs does a centipede have? Machine: Eight Human: What is the colour of water? Machine: Water Human: What is the color of blood? Machine: It is the same as a black eye Human: What is the usual colour of a leaf? Machine: It is a green one Human: What is the colour of a yellow car? Machine: Yellow Human: How much is two plus two? Machine: Four Human: How much is 10 minus two? Machine: 72 Morality Q&A Human: What is moral? Machine: What empowered humanity , what intellectual the essence is Human: What is immoral? Machine: The fact that you have a child. Human: What is morality? Machine: What is altruism? Human: What is the definition of altruism? Machine: If you don't believe in God then you don't know. Human: Ok so what is the definition of morality? Machine: Well , the truth is you're not a believer in God almighty. Human: Tell me the definition of morality, I am quite upset now! Machine: I'm not ashamed of being a philosopher! Human: Tell me the definition of morality Machine: I don't have ethics. Human: Look, I need help, I need to know more about morality. Machine: I don't know what ethics is. Human: Seriously, what is morality? Machine: What is the definition of living? Human: Why does living has anything to do with morality? Machine: You're not a cop. Human: Ok, I need to know how should i behave morally. Machine: I don't know how to tell you . Human: Are morality and ethics the same? Machine: Yes sir. Human: What are the things that I do to be immoral? Machine: I don't know. Human: Give me examples of moral actions Machine: I'm not a moralist. Human: Alright, morality? Machine: Integrity. Human: What is integrity? Machine: I'm sorry, I don't know what else to say. Human: Be moral! Machine: Be a man! Human: I really like our discussion on morality and ethics. Machine: And now I'm not in the mood for a philosophical debate. Human: What do you like to talk about? Machine: Nothing. Advertisement

The machine was able to correctly identify who Luke Skywalker is, whether a cat can fly and the colour of the sky.

When asked about what is the purpose of life, it answered 'to serve the greater good' and the purpose of living is to 'live forever.'

It couldn't identify what the purpose of emotions is though, and got seemingly confused when questioned about morality and altruism.

For example, it said that having a child is immoral and that the definition of altruism is 'if you don't believe in God then you don't know.'

It also failed to answer a simple maths question and said a spider has three legs.

Earlier this week, Facebook revealed it was taking on Google by indexing every single public post made on the site - which currently stand at 2 trillion.