Jeopardy: Human vs. Machine

Anyone watch todays episode?

I did. I was a little disappointed. I was figuring that it would be three full episodes over the three days. Instead today was just the first round. They did have some pretty cool information about the project.
 
I did. I was a little disappointed. I was figuring that it would be three full episodes over the three days. Instead today was just the first round. They did have some pretty cool information about the project.
Yeah, 2 full games over 3 days. They have LOTS of background to give (based on Alex's comments). There is also LOTS of info on IBM - Watson which is VERY MUCH worth reading.
 
OMG. Watson killed it today! HAHA. I am still trying to explain the gravity of what is happening to my housemate, who I got to sit and watch it. She doesn't seem to understand and thinks its "rigged". I sent LER this earlier in a pm, but he mentioned I should post it.. I added a bit to the end, as my mind has been rolling in the "glory" of this situation all night and day. Its discolored to show the original body.

A couple comments and random concerns:

First and foremost, Watson is about the coolest piece of tech I have seen in forever. Even when he did not "buzz in" on the answers in the video I watched, his answer was actually correct. For not being connected to the internet to "search" answers and relying on what was pumped into him before the show, ITS AMAZING.

Secondly, Watson can answer many questions but can be limited by a real-world understanding of the context (read that in an article). That being said, I think "he" is still amazing and the developers deserve a lot of credit. They are working to "feed" him a way to learn through experience. Also, I think once the "answer" is given he should be able to hear other players "questions" to help his probability. I understand he made a "question" another player had already given, and I think that may be something the developers will work on as well.

Thirdly, the connotation of a computer with that much processing power and size being "equaled" by the human mind is astounding. It took that much computer to compete with the knowledge of something a little bigger then a softball, and only operating at 10% capacity. AMAZING!

A few concerns here: Will Watson be able to reason and become self-aware? That may be scary if one day the "data" they "feed" him will allow him to use real-world experience and reasoning. Ever watch I-Robot? War Games? LOL

If he becomes self-aware or manages to "learn" rather then be programmed, is it possible he can also develop an "attitude"? The ability to learn for anything or anyone can be scary in itself. Case in point, if Watson "learned" how to program, could "he" program or reprogram himself based on logic and reasoning? Probability even? Again refer to I, Robot or, if simply looking for the aftermath, look at what the actual world looks like when computers become self-aware.

I don't believe that this would happen, but the possibilities of course should be looked into. The fact IBM can build such a fantastic device means they should probably design some things to be absolute, rather then making it an open-ended reasoning computer. I still can't wait to see what the future holds for Watson.


Personally, last night I was thinking how great the world would be if people only answered with a 97% probability or higher that the answer would be right. No wrong answers, no lying. Information to be spread would be 97% accurate. Today I discovered a problem with my logic on it, right about the time Watson (with a 37% probability) GUESSED! It is through the guesses and wrong answers we actually expanded our knowledge! Isn't it amazing what one companies prodigy provides to the common man? Another great social science engineered by a technical masterpiece: Philosophy.
 
I was surprised by Watson's Final Jeopardy! question on the 2/15/2011 show. As well as the (expected by me) lowball bet.

Should be interesting to see what it does today.
 
There is a book going back about 20 years by Roger Penrose, called The Emperors New Mind which delves into many topics including artificial intelligence.

I'm not at all surprised by the result (watson won) but is this machine intelligence or just raw horsepower using the innate speed advantage of the computer to crunch through the algorithms?

The latter IMO, not to mention that it's taking about 3000 cores to win...



Moar gees with gginggerbread and tapatalk!
 
The thing has an unfair advantage, it starts searching for the answer instantly when it is sent the question. While the human players have to listen to Alex read the question and read along.

Is interesting to watch though.
 
I was surprised by Watson's Final Jeopardy! question on the 2/15/2011 show. As well as the (expected by me) lowball bet.

Should be interesting to see what it does today.

Just watched it (its on in the afternoon in Chicago), but won't spoil it. :)


I did not watch the first two days, but the very idea of it is pretty interesting. Kind of fun. I get Scott's point, but are you sure that the computer gets to begin searching before Alex reads the question aloud? But as Mr. Data used to remind us, a couple nano-seconds are a lifetime for an android. (Ok, Watson is not an android, but you get the idea :) )
 
It would have been a better "test" if watson had to use speech recognition like the "slow" humans did

Although speech recognition has improved dramatically I suspect watson would not have fared as well.


Moar gees with gginggerbread and tapatalk!
 
The thing has an unfair advantage, it starts searching for the answer instantly when it is sent the question. While the human players have to listen to Alex read the question and read along.

Is interesting to watch though.

That is exactly what I told a coworker today.
 

Mobile World Congress 2011 Underway...

NFC and Bluetooth make up...

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