Watson - Smartest Machine on Earth

[D'z Nutz]

I happened to catch this on tv yesterday. Pretty interesting stuff:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/smartest-machine-on-earth.html

The episodes where Watson takes on Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter airs Monday through Wednesday next week.

[Feruk]

Well I got next week planned out!

[Seth1968]

Watson's algorithms are infinitely more complex than a chess algorithm.

It was a classic scene when Watson repeated Ken's wrong answer.

[adam c]

it's like what i read somewhere else, he is fed the questions through a text file instead of listening to the question like everyone else, I'm not sure how scientific it trully is, sure it's pretty cool but he probably has the internet downloaded into his database

[Zero102]

I think Watson would be 100 times cooler if they had used Bender's voice instead :(

[ExtraSlow]

I liked Ken's smirk when watson repeated the answer.

[badatusrnames]

Originally posted by adam c
it's like what i read somewhere else, he is fed the questions through a text file instead of listening to the question like everyone else, I'm not sure how scientific it trully is, sure it's pretty cool but he probably has the internet downloaded into his database

What's revolutionary about Watson is not the fact that it has access to basically the entire sum of human knowledge, it's the ability to interpret conversational speech and pull an answer out of that database.

Apparently though, it gets the full question fed to him by text the moment it appears, while the humans have to read it and then come up with an answer, giving it a head start.

[toastgremlin]

Natural language processing is incredibly, incredibly difficult, so it's really neat that it has (for example) the ability to distinguish between "running for office" and "running a marathon" as two different concepts.

Kind of wish I got to work somewhere with high-concept projects like this instead of the usual CRUD apps.

[PsychNerd]

I think it's really cool because it's more than just downloading a whole database of info. it's being able to interpret things like puns. It's processing to a level that no other computer has ever done before!

[Seth1968]

What's revolutionary about Watson is not the fact that it has access to basically the entire sum of human knowledge, it's the ability to interpret conversational speech and pull an answer out of that database.

That's exactly why it took a whole team of algorithm coders.



Apparently though, it gets the full question fed to him by text the moment it appears, while the humans have to read it and then come up with an answer, giving it a head start.

The buzzers (including Watsons) are deactivated until Alex finishes the clue and a stage hand activates the buzzers. By that time, all three usually know the answer, and it's now a matter of anticipating how soon you can press the buzzer. Press it to soon, and you're locked out for the relatively long time of a quarter of a second. That's where Watson has the major advantage, as Watson can react instantly to the buzzer activation.

http://www.tnr.com/article/83337/ibm-watson-computer-jeopardy

[Kavy]

Oh jesus, time for me to start my training with John Connor.

[Tik-Tok]

Had no idea this was on, just d/l'd it and watched

I honestly would have thought it would have kicked more ass. Another year of algorithm tweaks, and it probably would have.

It's also strange to think, wasn't too many decades ago, there were room sized computer systems that could do 1/100000 of what a ipod nano does today... how long until we can say the same about Watson?



Originally posted by Kavy
Oh jesus, time for me to start my training with John Connor.

Our future leader is already dead, you think a real time travelling cyborg is going to screw up like a movie one?

I'm picturing more of a Matrix situation, except without a hero with magical powers.

[spikerS]

i find it crazy that Watson has 15TB, that is right, 15 terrabytes of ram. :eek:

[Myrrinda]

Originally posted by ExtraSlow
I liked Ken's smirk when watson repeated the answer.

Alex: No Watson, Ken already said that.

[kenny]

Part 1:
BfNBWJTGEEA

Part 2:
TFe2pJETNuw

[n1zm0]

they should've just named him wilson
http://www.logodesignworks.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/castaway-wilson-ball-logo.jpg

the first thing that came to mind when i saw watsons avatar, cant wait till they tweak it more tho, imagine they connect it to the interwebs for even more references/resources :nut:

[drewb]

Originally posted by Zero102
I think Watson would be 100 times cooler if they had used Bender's voice instead :(

this

[believe]

i call shenanigans on Watson on getting that first daily double :rofl:

but in all seriousness, this is incredible

[civic_stylez]

Originally posted by Kavy
Oh jesus, time for me to start my training with John Connor.

my thoughts exactly.

[Graham_A_M]

Wow thats really quite amazing. How it can interpret a question, analyze it to its truest sense and come up with the most tangible answer is surreal.

way to go IBM! Too bad it takes such an amazing amount of power to run it.
That'll change soon enough though, it'll just be history repeating itself.

[n1zm0]

Watson's 'brain network' was created by Canadians!

http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Watson+computer+Ottawa+roots/4290481/story.html

and in 5 years or so ther'll be something better than watson, better because it will be able to determine the answers by reasoning, 'experience' and connecting knowledge that it knows is a viable source:




Mr. Hovy told Digits the next, more important step, is on the horizon: RACR (which stands for either Reading and Contextual Reasoning or Reading and Contextual Reasoner — Mr. Hovy said the research teams haven’t settled on which name to use).

That next generation, perhaps only five years away, will be able to do something Watson can’t, which is to learn background knowledge on given topics and then “do reasoning about that.”

The difference is subtle but important. Watson uses its size and parallel processing capabilities to speedily match parts of speech with reams of information it finds on the Internet, and then pick the most likely answer to a given question. But it can’t think contextually, bringing interrelated facts to bear on a particular problem. It’s the difference between speed-reading to find an answer in a textbook,versus being able to use experience with similar situations to solve a problem.

RACR, the successor generation to Watson, will be able to find answers to questions by understanding context, and reasoning based on background knowledge that’s been fed into its memory. It will also be able to make more sophisticated decisions about which pieces of information are trustworthy by using qualitative “indirect measures,” such as whether a given piece of information is praised by third parties.



http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/02/16/computer-scientist-racr-will-eclipse-watson/

[Hakkola]

Watson doesn't have access to the internet, nor does he have the whole internet downloaded, that's ridiculous.

What he has is the IMDB database, world book encyclopedia, wikipedia, the bible and most of the NY Times archive.

Good link to the Nova episode
http://www.icefilms.info/ip.php?v=125319&

Really interesting tech.

[Xtrema]

http://i.imgur.com/Pz5oG.jpg

[Zephyr]

http://i.imgur.com/fQmWq.jpg