As much as we love our
Google homepage, computer search remains a pretty rudimentary affair. You punch in keywords and you get only indirect answers in the form of relevant web results. IBM doesn't seem to be too happy with this situation and has been working for the past three years on perfecting its
Watson supercomputer: an array of server racks that's been endowed with linguistic algorithms allowing it to not only recognize oddly phrased or implicative questions, but to answer them in kind, with direct and accurate responses. Stuffed with encyclopedic knowledge of the world around it, it answers on the basis of information stored within its data banks, though obviously you won't be able to tap into it any time soon for help with your homework. The latest word is that Watson's lab tests have impressed the producers of
Jeopardy! enough to have the bot participate in a televised episode of the show. That could happen as early as this fall, which fits right in line with our scheduled doom at robots' hands by the end of 2012. Ah well, might as well get our popcorn and enjoy the show.
posted June 17th 2010 5:55AM
only 5 years to go before we have the black guy computer thing from the movie "The Time Machine"
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3170343168/tt0268695
@daniesto
Watson is pretty awesome, but...
think what "Sherlock" could do!
@(Unverified) Something 'elementary' perhaps.
@RincewindWiz Watson is elementary i.e. Sherlock - "Elementary my dear Watson"
@NeatOman I think you'll find I'm right, if you think about it.
@daniesto
W.O.P.R.
@daniesto
What the hell! we're making skynet!!
zomg
@NeatOman
Did you know Holmes actually never said that dialogue!!
@daniesto
"Joshua" would have been a much better name, considering it will likely be on Jeopardy.
"Greetings, Professor Falcon. Would you like to play a game?"
@daniesto Obligatory iPhone or Android fanboy quip.
@daniesto Seriously though, if they can make this work and turn it into an online answer portal, it will become the defacto standard for nearly 85% of web searches.
I was duely impressed that IBM also showed that it can still screw up big time, very smart move.
@(Unverified) Perfect!
@daniesto
Davvveeee.
what was the movie had the computer if the red light
@(Unverified) Watson is the name of the first person who ran IBM
Thomas J. Watson
@daniesto
but, can it run crysis, why yes, yes it can
@GreenLeaf Yeah, it looks and sounds like "The Turk". Imagine what it could do if it had a laser on its head. oO
wolframalpha anyone?
@mrqs No Thanks. I'll pass
@mrqs Exactly what i was thinking
@mrqs Imagine the possibilities if they worked together on Watson...
In before skynet jokes
@CommentsTroll How terrifying!
"Terminator 4 - Rise of the Robot Quiz Contestants!"
Sharon Apple 1.0?
IBMs got some good taste in music.
I don't understand why they show the hardware - surely this is a software project?
@RincewindWiz
was thinking the same thing
but well it might require some very fast hardware but the challenge is on the software side
@RincewindWiz
IBM is still a hardware company (and software), they're just showing off their hardware
@RincewindWiz How can the software operate without the hardware ? This would take a huge amount of processing..
@RincewindWiz That runs on...
@McDuckScrooged My point is that this project is doing nothing that you couldn't do with similar software written for a "standard" computer. There is nothing special about the hardware that "makes this work." Sure it might support many parallel processes, but ultimately that's not what they're demoing.
The two are equally important. It is not about finding the answer; it is about finding it in finite, and in fact very short time, otherwise the software is brilliant but useless.
@someToast OS X
@RincewindWiz People like to see something tangible, it increases the impact to see the cold slick machine doing something that's somewhat human-like. It's all marketing really.
Yeah, real fancy. Let's see it press the buzzer.
@supergenius Actually, there's about a 1 second blip in the video that shows it doing just that. Around 3:23.
Google suckers cry in dark corners now.
@magadget Why?
@loocas Because if IBM makes this work, they could end up with a KILLER search engine, and Google would be playing catch up.
@magadget -- IBM are first and foremost solutions providers, read the FAQ here:
http://www.research.ibm.com/deepqa/faq.shtml
They want to sell the solution to others and they want to sell their hardware.. I would think Microsoft with its Bing should be more fearful of this than Google..
The are specifically highlighting Blue Gene, to be able to run this and Blue Gene happens to run Linux as well IBMs own proprietary OS.. This would be enough to demonstrate to the world that Windows is Weak sauce ..
Google could possibly end up buying this solution and integrating it into their search engine tech or as in the FAQ this could be used like the Star Trek (tv series / film) computer system.. Seriously my hat off to IBM, this is what I consider awesome tech..
I very much doubt IBM would enter the search engine tech.
@GadgetTamer
...because it'd be cheap to setup racks of supercomputers just to give people good search results?
Call me when they have a business model that says they can pay for a venture like that with simple ads on the page.
Sorry Google haters, they aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
@McDuckScrooged Considering how important this technology is I think Microsoft would try to buy it too, either that or they would give Wolfram-Alpha some more funding since Bing has a partnership with Wolfram-Alpha and gets its instant answers from it.
Skynet? I am going to build a bomb shelter just in case man vs machine war start.
@k2001
Dude, you are Chuck Norris. Skynet should build a shelter.
Google should buy this. They could use it for the search engine and for the translate tool.
@Lucian Armasu No, IBM can do some real hardcore science with it. Google would just hastily make it into a product and fail to market it.
@AlexDorman Yeah just like their dumb search engine!
@Lucian Armasu yeah of course...
Google should just BUY IBM I mean what's the problem ?
Like GM should just BUY toyota, renault/Nissan and volkwagen it would solve all their problems..
Why don't they MS and Apple while they are at it ?
computer - turn on the holograms bridge and load youporn.com
Thats a lot of memory. I'm drooling now.
System like DARPA's iXo Artificial Intelligence Control Grid (witch is a "Super AI" system that collects data a deciphers for the military on a global scale could be up and running http://www.darpa.mil/ipto/) and "Digital Angel" (witch can track a school of fish via implants worldwide) along with programmable transistors to make the AI independent can now be mass produced can make "Skynet" today :) YAY beep boop bee Bop!