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
It's a shame that IBM can't get out of it's own way as a company though...
Q: In the year 2010. a semantically capable artificial intelligence was created in the IMB R&D center. They've named it Watson. However, in popular culture it's better known as?
A: What is Skynet?
@incognito We're getting there... at the rate we're going, in 2012....
@incognito
Robot Trebek: I'm sorry you answer must be in the form on enslaving humanity.
@KAL326 I'll take The Rapists for $800. SUCK IT, TREBEK!
What is Awesome ?
That is brilliant! The perfect way to humble a computer and raise awareness to an incredible project... I wish my dad were alive to watch that show (he used to work for IBM in research and was an avid Jeopardy! fan)
Nicely done video BTW - shows the great with the oopses, not all just "rah rah Watson!"
"For the last three years, I.B.M. scientists have been developing what they expect will be the world’s most advanced “question answering” machine..."
Shouldn't they have designed an "Answer Questioning machine"?
To quote the most famous vastly overrated egomaniac of this decade :
"Isn't that amazing ?"
BOOM !
*Computer voice* "Trebek, Your mother is so fat, the escape velocity at her surface is 3x10*8 m/s"
They should load it with an mp3 of an old SNL skit.
"What is you're mother is a whore, Trebek? Har har harr!"
"Therapist for 200, please."
@Funke Tobias Dr
I'll take the Penis Mightier
Watson, how did IBM help Germany kill millions of people?
Let me guess, they are bringing back Ken Jennings to compete against the machine?
I for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
A: This computer was featured on Jeopardy! soon before it took over the world.
Q: What is Watson.
This is AWESOME..
@DoctarPeppar This is Awesomo
Watson, what is the meaning of life?
It would really be fascinating to have this with aspirations to learn things for itself — to ask questions and learn from them — instead of needing to be “taught” the facts in a brute-force way.
Just don't give it a fancy arm and everything should be fine ;)
If it starts singing Daisy Bell, I'm outta here.
Trebek: This is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
Watson: What is 42?
So it appears to be mechanically pushing it's own button, but how is it getting the input for the questions? My guess is it's not speech rec. So is it textual input? If so, is it presented with the textual question at the same time as the player? If so, is it getting an unfair advantage because it can begin to process the question before the players. In Jeopardy speed AND answer accuracy are both required. What is being tested? One or the other or both? It's an interesting experiment, but I'd like to know more.
@pbusardo
textual input.
when u think about it, human process the question when the host is speaking out loud, too.
MultiVac!
I want one!!!
1:0 for Geeks versus Nerds.
How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
So it can run jeopardy... lets see it run Crysis.
The little red Jeopardy! lightbar above Watson's name made me think of KITT.