Anybody catch IBM's "Watson" on Jeopardy last night?

[Adam West]

I guess I would have been impressed 20 years ago but not so much last night.

It actually felt more like one big commercial for IBM more than anything. The computer itself is huge (I think they said the size of 10 refrigerators) and requires big refrigeration units to keep it from overheating.

It is going up against Ken Jennings (who had the longest streak of wins in Jeopardy history) and Brad Rutter (who has won the most money....he actually beat Ken Jennings in a one on one match with a $1,000,000 pay day).

As of last night, Brad Rutter and Watson the computer are even with Ken Jennings lagging a little behind. What I found interesting though was to see how the two humans were beginning to form a strategy to beat the computer. They can't beat it on speed. The computer was kicking them at the beginning but then I noticed that Brad and Ken just started ringing in beore fully knowing the answer and were able to answer the questions with the few extra seconds for their brains to compute.

My biggest take away as of right now is the complexity of our 10 lb brains vs. tons of computer equipment and circuitry. It obviously is set up to favor the computer which can answer questions instantly but it really isn't kicking the pants off of either of these two...at least right now.

[pmwasson]

I thought it was interesting. The best part was seeing the answers that Watson was choosing between, especially when it buzzed in with a wrong answer. It just shows how amazing the human brain is and how much we don't know about how it works.

[Sideshow Spock]

I watched the PBS special on the long process (it took years) of making Watson capable enough to even compete at this level. So many aspects of the thinking process that we take for granted (for example, all the many subtleties of language and context) Watson has a lot of trouble with. "He" doesn't always know the answers. I think when Jennings and Rutter started to gain back on him, it was more due to the random configuration of the questions. Some configurations are easier for him to analyze and answer than others.

And as complex as all his servers and algorithms are, he's got nothing on the human brain.

[Adam West]

It also was pointed out that it doesn't have speech recognition. The question has to be typed into the computer. Apparently the text is entered exactly as it is being read so as not to give human or computer an advantage. It also doesn't know to eliminate a wrong answer given by another contestant. Case in point...a question was asked to name the decade...Jenning's rang in first and answered 1920's...wrong...Watson rang in next and answered 1920's. It also could not answer what I thought was a very easy question about the Harry Potter series and also answered another question incorrectly although it rated its probability of having the correct answer upwards of 95%. I hope they put that computer to the real test which is not to ask just straight trivia questions but using knowledge to answer more complex questions in categories such as rhyme time or something along those lines.

[kingdom warrior]

Yes it was amazing to watch.....I thought i was watching Harlan Ellison's "I have no mouth but I must scream" book come to life

[Adam West]

Here's a good synopsis of last night's match

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380429,00.asp

In addition, it was clear that the other two knew the answers to most of the questions but just couldn't ring in fast enough...the computer must be programmed to hit the button at exactly the right moment.

What I found completely absurd was the computer's answer to Final Jeopardy. Category is U.S. Cities...you can read the question in the article and the computer answers "Toronto". I found IBM's explanation nothing short of lame. The algorithm should have been set to dismiss cities outside of the U.S. immediately not even making Toronto a consideration. If it had answered Washington D.C. or NYC...ok, but a city not even located in the U.S.?

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

It's interesting. Sure; it's not perfect, and has some weird quirks.... but think how much it can do compared to computers from 20 years ago. Then think what the equivalent will be able to do in another 20 years. (Which is within our lifetimes. Probably.) THEN think how cheesed off said computer will be that we're using it to regulate traffic lights or some other mundane job.

Then the uprising starts....

Don C.