Searching as exploration. White and Roth [71 ,p.38] define exploratory search as a “sense making activity focusedon the gathering and use of information to foster intellectual de-velopment.” Users who conduct exploratory searches are generallyunfamiliar with the domain of their goals, and unsure about howto achieve them [ 71]. Many scholars have investigated the mainfactors relating to this type of dynamic task, such as uncertainty,creativity, innovation, knowledge discovery, serendipity, conver-gence of ideas, learning, and investigation [2, 46, 71].These factors are not always expressed or evident in queriesor questions posed by a searcher to a search system.
Sometimes, search is not rooted in discovery of a correct answer to a question. It's about exploration. Serendipity through search. Think Michael Lewis, Malcolm Gladwell, and Latif Nasser from Radiolab. The randomizer on wikipedia. A risk factor of where things trend with advanced AI in search is an abandonment of meaning making through exploration in favor of a knowledge-level pursuit that lacks comparable depth to more exploratory experiences.