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"Watson" on Jeopardy!


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I'm so excited.

Don't get out much, do you ;)

The prizes are pretty ho hum. If the dumb humans win I reckon they should be able to smash Watson to pieces with a bit of "In your face you pile of silicon chips". :ph34r:

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At first I was 'meh' about this. A computer on an information game? Gimmick! But then I watched the video and saw just how difficult it was to convey that information in natural English into a format that a computer can understand and work with. Now I'm more "hmmm" than "meh". This bears more investigation.

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I'll probably watch this, if IBM actually made the computer able to understand and respond to questions then it will win without any trouble. I'm kinda hoping it will fizz and explode on the first question taking out the two Jeopardy stars and Trebeck.

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I'll probably watch this, if IBM actually made the computer able to understand and respond to questions then it will win without any trouble. I'm kinda hoping it will fizz and explode on the first question taking out the two Jeopardy stars and Trebeck.

The computer is actually Trebek's long time nemesis Sean Connery:

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Upon more thought of this, I've swung back to the ambivilent camp. I think we can tell already that Watson will always be able to ring in first, leaving the squishy competetors always getting the sloppy seconds if it fails. That seems somewhat unfair.

that's not really true. Any contestant can read ahead and ring in before Trebek finishes reading the answer. According to the scores where I found it the link which I forgot to add (I think it's on Gizmodo), even tough Watson was winning it was only thru a small margin againt one of them. And if you add up the contestants score, the machine was actually losing to the humans.

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Who decides how much to risk on a question? Watson? IBM's guys take a poll? Especially for the final one--I'd be impressed if the computer can guess if the human competitors know the answer, and base its wager off of their chances of gettting it right...

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Who decides how much to risk on a question? Watson? IBM's guys take a poll? Especially for the final one--I'd be impressed if the computer can guess if the human competitors know the answer, and base its wager off of their chances of gettting it right...

Actually, that's probably how it's going to do it. It will probably wager accordingly to how it does in the category, assuming it has or can answer correctly in the category. If it calculates a high probability of getting the answer right, that confidence score will weigh in on how much it will bet. So let's say it's been answering all the questions correctly in that category correctly and all of its answers have had a confidence score of >90%, then it would make its bet accordingly, i.e., let's say >75% of its earnings. As for how it will do in Final Jeopardy!, when there's nothing pre-existing to calculate against, I'm still waiting for that answer.

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Who decides how much to risk on a question? Watson? IBM's guys take a poll? Especially for the final one--I'd be impressed if the computer can guess if the human competitors know the answer, and base its wager off of their chances of gettting it right...

Annnnnnnd just like that, I swing right back into the "hey, cool!" catagory. This is something that I want to see play out :D

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  • 5 weeks later...

It wouldn't be an event if they didn't blabber on about it. Besides, this is a momentous occasion for the audience (both studio and TV) and they probably didn't know as much about it as we internet denizens did. That being said, I really enjoyed how Watson didn't have a choke-hold on the answers. It didn't ring in if it wasn't confident in the answer and didn't know that the previous player had used a wrong answer (which it then repeated).

So far, looking quite entertaining. Can't wait for tomorrow's continuation.

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I haven't seen the show yet, will try to do so online, as it certainly seems intriguing. Anyway, for those interested, this week's issue of TIME magazine has a feature on "The Singularity": the moment when cognitive machines will take over and become the prominent sentient species on Earth, which is predicted to occur in 2045. :ph34r:

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It wouldn't be an event if they didn't blabber on about it. Besides, this is a momentous occasion for the audience (both studio and TV) and they probably didn't know as much about it as we internet denizens did. That being said, I really enjoyed how Watson didn't have a choke-hold on the answers. It didn't ring in if it wasn't confident in the answer and didn't know that the previous player had used a wrong answer (which it then repeated).

So far, looking quite entertaining. Can't wait for tomorrow's continuation.

I agree. That's why it should have been an hour for the first episode or a five day thing. The event itself is watching the game and to see the competition between men and machine.

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The episode is floating on Youtube. I'll avoid posting links since it might get taken down but Watson performed well. It definitely struck out on a few answers and I do recall it fumbled an response. The correct response was "What is 'missing a leg'?" but Watson responded with "What is 'leg'?". Tomorrow is the Double Jeopardy and Final Jeopardy rounds. It will be interesting to see how responds to more complex and obscure language-usage.

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The Singularity has more to it than mere AI takeover. That's just one of the possible situations that could cause the Singularity. Massive bionic augmentation, cybernetic connection, uploading conciousness...

Yep. And Facebook.

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that's not really true. Any contestant can read ahead and ring in before Trebek finishes reading the answer. According to the scores where I found it the link which I forgot to add (I think it's on Gizmodo), even tough Watson was winning it was only thru a small margin againt one of them. And if you add up the contestants score, the machine was actually losing to the humans.

Are you sure? I watched last night and the contestants all allowed Trebek to finishing reading the answers. These were answers that even I was able to get right before he finished reading them.

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Are you sure? I watched last night and the contestants all allowed Trebek to finishing reading the answers. These were answers that even I was able to get right before he finished reading them.

You're right. Maybe they changed it but a long time ago Trebek sometimes used to stop mid sentence when someone rang in.

Finally saw last nights episode on youtube. Ironically, my DVR machine wasn't smart enough to record it even though it scheduled Monday's and tonights episode. Wow, they got decimated... I'm also surprised at the way it can pronounce all the words correctly.

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I missed most of today's show, but I saw the dollar values at the end. Watson just absolutly crushed it's competition. I know some people are going to use this as an anti-technology excuse, but I think this is an amazing leap in computer useage. Yesterday they were talking about doctors being able to use natural language to confer with automated record-keeping machines for a second opinion, and now I wonder what other applications this technology will have in a few years.

That being said, Douglas Rain and not Majel Roddenberry ;)

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Just what do you think you're doing, CoryHolmes?

Just don't hook the trivia-answering bastard up to a super-dimensional space fortress.

Or Skynet.

Or connect it to a Cybernetic Lifeform Node with a monothesist belief system.

Or allow it to turn us into an energy source after we send up massive nuclear clouds to block out the sun in an attempt to depower our new mechanical overlords.

Frak it: let's just tell Watson to divide by zero and be done with it.

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