This is kinda scary.
Yes, it's scary. There are people walking this Earth who actually know the questions to nearly all of those answers.
Interesting what the computer knew, and what it didn't know, like the names involving Harry Potter, but not the relationships. If you've read the books, you know that Voldemart was the bad guy, but the computer did not.
> This is kinda scary.
I didn't watch, but my young cousin, who is quite "snarky" posted this on facebook and I thought it was funny: "Only thing to say about Jeopardy: Skynet has become self-aware"
> I didn't watch, but my young cousin, who is quite "snarky" posted this on facebook and I thought it was funny: "Only thing to say about Jeopardy: Skynet has become self-aware"
Out of the mouths of babes...LOL
I thought that was funny Carl 😀
Thought it was weird that they only played the first round.
Agree with Bruce, all that computing power and didn't know why?
Doug
Who won?
I was dieing to watch the show after watching the PBS special on the development of the computer, but I had bluegrass band practice.
Who won?
no winner yet. different format. first night-first round.second night-second round. watson is tied with human for first, i believe. other player is not far behind.
watson did get one particular guess wrong, AFTER one of the other players was already called wrong on the SAME ANSWER. oops! anyone else notice that?
Who won?
During the preliminary testing, Watson could NOT "hear" the other player's responses, so it often made the mistake of repeating the wrong answer. Supposedly, Watson is now receiving a text message of the other player's response so it shouldn't have made that mistake.
Watson Was Very Specific, Changing The Form Of The Question
Watson may have known and understood the wrong response and reformatted it into a question.
What was interesting is to see Watson's evaluation of it's responses, top three I recall. One could also see that Watson was more familiar with certain categories.
I would like to see Watson's response time to an answer such as; "The sum of one and one." as it runs through all the permutations, whereas in a human it would just be the time to click the button.
Aside to Wendell and Angel, could you just bring this thread to the top again today and tommorrow at about 7 PM EST?
Paul in PA
keep digging, watson
> There are people walking this Earth who actually know the questions to nearly all of those answers.
[flash width=640 height=390] http://www.youtube.com/v/9lXmvunn7XI?version=3 [/flash]
A computer is only as smart as the person(s) who programmed it.
Watson Was Very Specific, Changing The Form Of The Question
Years ago, do you remember a cute movie called "Champagne for Caesar." It was about a genius on a quiz show who wouldn't take the money and run. He kept coming back every week and winning more. They finally stumped him with, "What is your social security number?"
The Honeymooners
Remember the "The $99,000 Answer"?
Ralph appears on a game show and gets to pick his category for the next week. He picks "Popular Songs", and has one week to cram. He gets Norton down to play the piano, except Norton always starts off by playing the opening bars to "Swanee River" before they start, eventually to Ralph's annoyance.
Sure enough, when it's time to start answering questions, Ralph is full of confidence and states that he's going to go all the way to the $99,000 question.
Of course, the first question, for $100.00 is "Who wrote the following song?", and they play the opening bars of "Swannee River".
Ralph, of course has never considered the song, and when asked again who wrote that song, he mumbles, "Ed Norton??"
As he is ushered off the stage, a completely shattered Ralph shows his now useless knowledge by rifling off song titles after the words spoken by the emcee.
www.youtube.com/embed/EH1vpCtXVTU
The Honeymooners
That is my favourite Honeymooners episode... hands down.
I noticed that the computer picked across the board from left to right, no matter if it got the right answer. People almost always seem to pick vertically from top to bottom, especially if they get a right question.
I really liked the back story info during the show.
I was thinking skynet the whole time I was watching it.
Just think 10 years from now we'll be able to ask our cell phones anything.
Knowing the "questions" on Jeopardy is only half the equation. Ringing in before your opponents is the other half. When Ken Jennings was making his 74 game run, I watched him consistently ring in and then formulate his answer after the fact. He understood that just knowing the answer isn't enough. You have to ring in first to even get the opportunity to give the correct answer.
I'm not surprised Watson "knows" the answers to all those questions. A lot of data has been stuffed into those servers and a lot of programming has gone into the algorithms. I am, however, suspicious about the methodology by which Watson rings in to get the opportunity to give the answer. There's no way Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter don't know the answers to 90% of those questions. This looks to me more like a test of reflexes than a test of knowledge. It looks to me as if Watson has an advantage in the ringing in department.
Here are a couple of articles on the methodology used by Jeopardy to control the buzzers.
> This is kinda scary.
Today, they made much of the potential for Watson to be used by doctors to analyze symptoms and aid in diagnosing complicated medical problems. I want to know how long before I go shopping some day and buy a package of Sudafed for my cold and a couple of batteries for my watch at the drug store, then go to Home Depot and buy an ice chest for tailgating next weekend and 10 feet of plastic tubing to replace the drain line on my water softener and the cops are waiting with a search warrant when I get home because Watson told them I’m rigging up a meth lab.
> Just think 10 years from now we'll be able to ask our cell phones anything.
You can already do that with Voice Search. 😉
But voice search doesn't analyze it's responses, it only ranks pages by the most popular/pertinent. Watson is an amazing piece of engineering on many different levels.
BTW I know you weren't equating Watson with an iPhone.:-)
