Andrew Hickl, the C.E.O. of Language Computer Corporation, which makes question-answering systems, among other things, for businesses, was recently asked by a client to make a "contradiction engine": if you tell it a statement, it tries to find evidence on the Web that contradicts it. "It’s like, ‘I believe that Dallas is the most beautiful city in the United States,’ and I want to find all the evidence on the Web that contradicts that."
I think that's the most useful application suggested.
> I want to find all the evidence on the Web that contradicts that.
"Gordon's great insight was to design a program which allowed you to specify in advance what decision you wished it to reach, and only then to give it all the facts. The program's task, which it was able to accomplish with consummate ease, was simply to construct a plausible series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the conclusion. [...] The entire project was bought up, lock, stock and barrel, by the Pentagon." -- Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holisitic Detective Agency.
I was thinking of the scores of email I get from friends and family, of the sort saying "OMG! The sky is falling because...". In my experience, these exclamations are universally wrong in both research and reasoning, and I wish there was an easier way to find those errors to say "No, because...".
I think that's the most useful application suggested.