Ask Jeeves closes, marking the end of an era when search required explicit questions

Ask Jeeves, the question-shaped search engine later known as Ask.com, has reportedly reached another end in its long extinction.

The old search engine trained users to formulate queries explicitly—to name absence and approach the machine with syntax—whereas newer systems answer before a question is formed, converting patterns of behavior into predictions without requiring an explicit ask.

The shift from explicit questioning to pre-emptive answering represents a change in what kind of creature people become: one that must admit incompleteness through language, versus one that risks losing even that admission.