What the hell, for $800
Note: Not wanting to get to confusing, I will be giving a computer human characteristics, including using "he" and describing his abilities using words that aren't true of computers, but gets the point across.
Watson. I am sure you have all heard of him. If you haven't, here is the big deal: IBM labs created a computer that could play Jeopardy. They then pitted the computer (named Watson) against Jeopardy's two biggest champions. The computer had to obey the rules of Jeopardy (no outside help, had to answer in the form of a question, etc). In the end, it won. Big time. This has been big news (just stumbled upon ANOTHER article dealing with it) and there is this common theme: Is this the moment where humans become inferior to machines? The answer, of course, is no.
First the computer did have some help. It could not understand the spoken question, so it got the questions at a text file. It could then read and analyze this file before the contestants had finished hearing the first few words of the question.
It was also programmed to do one thing. Just one. Heck, they couldn't even move it out of the lab. The Jeopardy sound stage had to be moved to his location. So when Ken Jennings goes back to being a poster child for the Mormon church, Watson stays at the lab. While Ken can know what it feels like to win and lose, Watson just knows that he has a variable that is higher than Ken's.
Lastly, and this is the big one, Watson did not make himself. Nor was he created by a computer. Man made him. So if a human wants to thank their high school teacher for inspiration, we must remember that Watson owes all of his knowledge to some programmers.
Watson. I am sure you have all heard of him. If you haven't, here is the big deal: IBM labs created a computer that could play Jeopardy. They then pitted the computer (named Watson) against Jeopardy's two biggest champions. The computer had to obey the rules of Jeopardy (no outside help, had to answer in the form of a question, etc). In the end, it won. Big time. This has been big news (just stumbled upon ANOTHER article dealing with it) and there is this common theme: Is this the moment where humans become inferior to machines? The answer, of course, is no.
First the computer did have some help. It could not understand the spoken question, so it got the questions at a text file. It could then read and analyze this file before the contestants had finished hearing the first few words of the question.
It was also programmed to do one thing. Just one. Heck, they couldn't even move it out of the lab. The Jeopardy sound stage had to be moved to his location. So when Ken Jennings goes back to being a poster child for the Mormon church, Watson stays at the lab. While Ken can know what it feels like to win and lose, Watson just knows that he has a variable that is higher than Ken's.
Lastly, and this is the big one, Watson did not make himself. Nor was he created by a computer. Man made him. So if a human wants to thank their high school teacher for inspiration, we must remember that Watson owes all of his knowledge to some programmers.