news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

Summary:Stick to some 'useless' knowledge to make the search a little slower

As we all know, we are in an era surrounded by big data and artificial intelligence. While algorithm push and smart tools make it convenient to obtain information, they also bring about unique "information gap" phenomena such as information overload, information asymmetry, and information cocoon.

To a certain extent, the core of "retrieval ability" is "the ability to seize the initiative in information": if you do not question the system, verify from multiple sources, and think independently when obtaining information, and do not have the accumulation of multi-dimensional information sources and the ability to evaluate and analyze information, then the world you see can only be the world pushed to you by search engines and smart tools.

This is also the original intention of creating "Retrieval Power: A Scientific Method to Break the Information Gap" (hereinafter referred to as "Retrieval Power"). This article is the editor's note of the book.

The challenge of “from 0 to 1”

In 2020, the Ministry of Education announced the first list of national first-class undergraduate courses. Thinking that there might be good topics in it, I carefully browsed through the list and found a course called "Information Literacy and Practice - Give You an Academic Eye" by Professor Gong Furong of Wuhan University. "This course attempts to answer why we, who are 'fed by algorithms' in the digital age, must seize the initiative in searching 'against the wind' and control information rather than be controlled by it; this course wants students who are immersed in research to look up at the sky and experience that the training process of information literacy is a process of shaping a person with interesting interests and a spirit of inquiry into new things..." Such course goals immediately attracted me, and the course framework was clear and interesting, so I thought of making this course into a popular book that would help readers master scientific information retrieval methods, improve information literacy, and get out of the "information cocoon", and at the same time be different from textbooks.

But due to various delays, I didn't contact Teacher Gong until 2021. Teacher Gong was very interested in my idea, which was within my expectation, because being able to give students a wonderful and vivid class and writing a good and easy-to-understand book for readers are in a sense connected. However, interest is interest, and Teacher Gong also expressed the difficulty of this work and her concerns. In the current university evaluation system, it can be said that it is a thankless task for university teachers to write a market-oriented book. On the one hand, it takes at least one or two years to write a book, and it takes at least half a year to publish it, and the time cost is too high; on the other hand, in the existing evaluation standards, the academic value of market-oriented books and the bonus to professional title evaluation are far less than high-quality journal articles. This forces some potential and capable university scholars to carefully consider when writing for the public. After a series of ideological struggles such as interest, hesitation, and wanting to give up, Teacher Gong finally took on this task. Later, she wrote in the preface of the book: "For me, who teaches general education courses in college, making the course 'substantial, useful, and interesting' has always been the ultimate ideal, and this last 'interesting' is extremely difficult and useless in mainstream academic evaluation. It has the concept of 'popularization of academia' to a certain extent, but it is easy to be misunderstood as 'reducing the dimension of academia'.After all, I am an idealist… Maybe such ideals will be ridiculed occasionally, but after many years, I have gained something. In the real "adult" education, the combination of natural sciences and humanities should be the best picture. I am grateful for everything I have given and gained. "

For Ms. Gong, achieving "from 0 to 1" is not an easy task, and it is accompanied by endless anxiety and unknown challenges, but she still chooses to face the difficulties, which relies not only on courage, but also on the strength of more than 20 years of deep cultivation in the search field. It is gratifying that although "Search Power" has just begun to be tested in the book market, Ms. Gong's unit has already affirmed the book, which may be a trend for scholars to write books in the future.

"Key" and "Easter Egg"

In the book "Retrieval Power: A Scientific Method to Break the Information Gap", the word "key" appears frequently, such as "one key opens one lock", "there are key document clues", and "I hope that after reading this book, you will not get fragmented knowledge points, but the key that can really complete complex tasks". When it comes to information retrieval, the first image that comes to everyone's mind should be a magnifying glass, that is, using a magnifying glass to find clues in the vast amount of literature. The image of "key" focuses more on accuracy and matching. For this reason, a pattern of a key embedded in a magnifying glass is specially designed on the cover of "Retrieval Power", which means that the ocean of information is often mixed with mud and sand. It is not enough to use a magnifying glass to sift through the sand. You also need to use a key to find gold in the sand. This is the purpose of scientific retrieval.

In order to enable readers to get this key smoothly and experience the fun of retrieval and the core connotation of information literacy, Mr. Gong tried to be as close to readers' psychology as possible in case selection and narrative techniques. During the review process, the case that impressed me the most was "a famous quote of Marx that was misattributed". This case starts with a well-known but questionable quote, adheres to the principle of not blindly following and not blindly believing in authority, and demonstrates the whole process of using different search tools to find the real source step by step. At the moment of revealing the truth, it was as if the clouds were cleared and the moon was bright, and the fog was gone. It was this case that made me truly feel that retrieval is not only a science, but also an art. Many readers also gave high praise to this case, which gave them the motivation to continue reading and exploring in depth. In addition, cases such as "Beautiful Numbers Flying in the Sky", "The Warmest Big Data", "Scientists' Lunch Party", and "Tu Youyou's Gift" are also equally fascinating.Teacher Gong has evolved the professional search process into interesting search stories, which invisibly eliminates the boredom and tediousness of the search, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of reasoning and solving cases, and unraveling the mystery. They will then realize that although getting out of the "information cocoon" is not an easy task, through systematic learning and scientific practice, they can also have the courage and ability to break through.

On the eve of the New Year of 2023, Teacher Gong sent a WeChat message saying that she wanted to add some extended content at the end of each chapter to help readers summarize and review the knowledge in this chapter, and also to practice it, but what should be put in it? I made three suggestions. First, summarize the search tools involved in this chapter, including databases, websites, paper reference books, etc., and briefly summarize the characteristics of each tool; second, recommend books, film and television materials related to the content of this chapter; third, set an exercise and give ideas for solving the problem. Considering the length of the article, it was finally decided to summarize the search tools and give exercises. Teacher Gong said that collecting search tools at the end of each chapter is an excellent way to help readers read the book "thick", and for a reference book like "Search Power" that is very instructive and practical, the existence of exercises is also indispensable. She named this part of the content "End of Text Easter Eggs", hoping that readers can find interesting details that are ignored in the text during the reading process, gain surprises, and deepen their impressions.

Keep moving in the AI ​​era

In March 2023, OpenAI released the ChatGPT-4 language model, and the discussion about artificial intelligence instantly swept the world. Soon after, Professor Gong said that he wanted to add a chapter on AIGC based on the first draft to explore the impact of ChatGPT on information retrieval. I strongly support this idea, and I believe that readers will also look forward to this part of the content.

Therefore, the seventh chapter of "Retrieval Power" "Drill (Part 2): New Ways to Play with Artificial Intelligence" lists many cases of using ChatGPT for retrieval, involving different scenarios such as life, work, and scientific research, such as "How to ask a girl you like out for dinner, be polite, and not feel embarrassed even if you are rejected", "Comprehensive views of business leaders, provide unique opinions for the decision to open a chain of skewers on campus", "Analysis of the main research directions of medical and engineering integration in the global field in the past five years", etc. As for how to better use AI to solve real problems, she summarized methods such as "role substitution", "decomposition and inspiration", "changing language", and "forming a complete theme system". Combined with corresponding cases, readers can master the correct way to ask questions to AI. But readers may wonder: AI is so powerful, why do we still need to learn retrieval? Isn't it enough to let AI help us find information directly? In the third section of Chapter 7, "The Boundary of Ability", Professor Gong showed the "unreliable" aspects of AI, including false information, data leakage, and academic misconduct. For example, when asked whether "Lao She" and "Shu Qingchun" are the same person, ChatGPT will give a wrong answer or even fabricate the resume of the writer "Shu Qingchun"; for another example, when searching for literature through ChatGPT, the literature it gives may not exist at all, but both the title and format are enough to be mistaken for the real thing. Therefore, can AI replace retrieval? Can the information found by AI be used with confidence? Is our purpose just to find information? What does information literacy mean in the digital age? Finding answers to this series of questions is exactly the purpose of Teacher Gong's writing "Retrieval Power".

The recent boom in artificial intelligence has surprised and frightened people at the same time. The biggest fear is being abandoned by the times and replaced by machines. But I really like what Mr. Gong said in the preface of Search Power: "The development of the digital society has been so rapid that the focus of information literacy education has changed before I can finish writing this book. But I hope that in the evolutionary game of hot spots, traffic and influence, I am the individual with limited rationality.Stick to some 'useless' knowledge to make the search a little slower” The information age is changing rapidly, but the thinking and concept of retrieval will run through it all. The pace does not stop, and the exploration continues.

"Retrieval Power: A Scientific Method to Break the Information Gap"

By Gong Furong

Shanghai Jiaotong University Press