"The ultimate search engine would basically understand everything in the world, and it would always give you the right thing. And we're a long, long ways from that"

Larry Page envisions a search engine that goes far beyond the capabilities of mere keyword retrieval or basic information sorting. The ideal search engine, in his perspective, is a technological entity that possesses a profound, comprehensive understanding of reality itself, every object, event, theory, nuance, and aspect of the world. Such an engine would surpass all current limitations, recognizing not just the relationships between words or the structure of documents, but also the meaning and context behind every possible query. This kind of understanding transcends parsing through billions of texts or even mastering natural language processing; it involves a level of artificial intelligence capable of interpreting the complexities and subtleties inherent in human knowledge and experience.

To "always give you the right thing" implies an almost omniscient form of guidance, where the search tool anticipates the user's intentions, disambiguates context, and delivers exactly what is needed, a solution, an explanation, a product, or a piece of advice, as if engaging in a meaningful dialogue. This would require not just storing and retrieving facts, but engaging in reasoning, deduction, and possibly even creativity. The search engine would navigate ambiguity, personal preferences, cultural variations, and ever-evolving concepts, all while maintaining accuracy and relevance.

Larry Page's acknowledgement that we are "a long, long ways from that" is both a reflection on technological progress and a humble recognition of the challenges facing artificial intelligence and information science. Despite massive advances, current search engines operate within boundaries imposed by data structures, incomplete knowledge graphs, and the inherent ambiguity of language. The path towards an all-knowing search engine involves overcoming fundamental obstacles in machine learning, ethics, privacy, semantics, and knowledge representation. Page's words inspire both admiration for what has been achieved and curiosity, and perhaps caution, about the vast, complex journey still ahead in humanity’s quest to fully harness and understand the world through technology.