Watson / Jeopardy 'robot', whats so cool?

That figures. You're incapable of putting two thoughts together.

I suppose it might look that way to a dumbass kid who really cares about Charlie Sheen, of all losers.

After you kid (but you just can't resist the last word, can you?).

Here's a thought: You sure seem to care that Charlie's a loser.

Here's another thought: Charlie Sheen might be a loser. I don't care.

Here's yet another(!) thought: I don't give a rodent's arse what you care about. Now go to your room and leave the attendant's computer alone!

Your stimulating convo just brings out the intellectual in me. :)

--- Joe

To show how clever they have become with expert systems?

I suspect it demonstrates a lot of clever algorithms at work under the hood even if it does rely on brute search the way Deep Blue did. I suspect it is a long way from being able to hold a normal conversation. We must always be careful of the Eliza effect.

JC

Dingbat, you're the one who brought him into the conversation.

I you're lying.

You care enough that you can't leave it alone. You *have* to get the last word in.

I see I wasn't wrong about your depth.

I totally agree with you about depth. Your depth is so great, I have to put on boots to wade through your verbiage.

Now, back to you, BOF. :)

--- Joe

I'm so proud of myself I can't shit! Tonight (well, last night), under the category, "Keys on the keyboard" or thereabouts, the clue was, "A garment that hangs straight down from the shoulders." Watson guessed, "chenille," Ken guessed "A?" and Brad didn't even ring in.

I GOT IT! The answer was "shift!"

I have beat Ken Jennings AND the smartest computer in the world!

(well, on one question, but that's infinitely more than zero!)

Cheers! Rich

Which simply proves that you really are shallow enough to drown a snail.

You really should have that compulsion to have the last word checked by a professional. It is a sickness.

I guess you really _didn't_ get it, Casey.

1) it was not hooked up to the internet. 2) the only information it received during the show was a plain text message of exactly what was on the revealed card, punctuation and all. 3) Nobody created search terms to help it find the answer. It had to extract the meaning of the clue, then formulate its own searches to develop an answer in which it had confidence.

FWIW... you don't understand Google either. It does not answer. It gives you a list of references from which you must develop confidence based upon what you already know of the subject on which you searched.

You must read the references, and decide if they're salient to your search.

How do you determine that? What thought process do you use to develop that?

LLoyd

As it turns out, no one had done it before. Processing the 1/2 to 2/3 of the worlds knowledge that is not in data bases is the challenge. Details are in the YouTube Videos available.

Good for you! I sure didn't now it.

I have to wonder if Watson even knew what the labels on the keyboard were. Did he get any of the answers from that category? Kinda funny that the computer didn't seem to know anything about keyboards. :)

Not sure what you think I don't understand.

One of the things I read on Watson was that one of the key developments was the programs ability to organize information in its memory on its own, without human assistance. Of course the method/s to do this were instructions worked out by the programmers. I admire all the human brain power that must have gone into this as I do also admire all the other clever thinking programs of the past but I don't believe it knows what it is doing in the way humans know things or is capable of enjoying its wins and being annoyed by its mistakes.

JC

Wow, even deeper! I have to admire your sense of self-righteousness, you silly BOF! :)

Back atcha, Senor!

--- Jose

Simply right, imbecile. You really do need a shrink.

There krw, Keith Williams, you've been corrected!!! You can't spell either.

I see that you still want to play, Gospodin, but I must be a little slower in batting it back to you, because I have a few more important things to do than to keep you from having the last word, doofuss-amigo! :)

Incredibly recursive (or is it *inductive*?) of you, you know, that in order to chide me for doing something, you are ipso facto doing the very same thing!

Whatta hoot!

--- Joe

That's certainly not all you're slow at. I'm sure you are really an impotent person.

No, dingbat. I gave you a chance to bow out, which any sane person would have taken. I'm now showing exactly how insane you really are, Hosie.

Google gives you [links to] information, which it ranks itself, by relevance. The 'answer' is in there.

Yes, how to boil out the 1,2,or 3 word answer.. An interesting software problem. But still, I fear lay-people will be thinking 'oh wow the computer is so smart it can play jeopardy and beat the best of the best! its smarter then us!'.

My thought is, how can it lose. Watson has a database of factual knowledge. A trivia question has *A* right answer. One. If the thing is working, it must win. If it is not working, it may lose (the humans may or may not err alot also, so it might still win).

Chess on the other hand, does not have *A* right move (so far as we know). Except near the end when it is possible to find the sequence of moves that result in an in-escapable checkmate.

..so I think playing chess is 'cooler'. :) just my 2 cents

HAHAHAHAH, Senor Hosie to you, Doofuss.

It didn't use speech recognition. It did OCR, reading the questions from the screen when it was shown on TV as it was read. Likewise, when another contestant answered correctly, the answer was shown on the screen and it saved that too, to help it get clues on the category.

...

It did "know" as it has this and other linked-to articles in its database:

I think it was the Nova episode that said it has local copies of Wikipedia and many more databases of info. They said they decided to exclude Urban Dictionary to keep it from saying profanity on TV.

In that particular situation it perhaps couldn't figure out that the questions involved keys on a computer keyboard. Not figuring out context seems to have been a source of several missed questions.

The NOVA episode was great, I think it explained a lot of what Watson does. It seemed a bit mysterious before, but after seeing the NOVA eposide it seems to me like a trick.