Watson, come here. I want you.

[karen_w_newton]

The above words were supposedly the first spoken over the telephone. But Watson is also the name of the IBM supercomputer currently competing in a Jeopardy tournament against human champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. The tournament started last night and continues through Wednesday

Comments

[mtlawson]

The real question for me is when Watson (and predecessor Deep Blue) lead to a true form of AI. Of course, it's all a matter of a program doing what it was programmed to do, but the learning and adjusting is the real trick.

Go Ken. I'm not ready to be obsolete yet.

[karen_w_newton]

Ken is having a hard time, mostly because of the buzzer issue. I think Watson is a sort of one dimensional intelligence. He can't really think, but he can solve (sometimes) the problem of what fact are you looking for when you ask that question. And he is able to retrieve a lot of facts.

p.s. both humans got the final jeopardy answer. Watson didn't, but he is still WAY ahead.

[a_r_williams]

Who do you think would win if Watson played Deep Blue?

Yeah, I know that one is programmed for one particular area, but there will come a point where they start combining the knowledge the various computers have.

One system will maximize its knowledge in a given area, then gain the knowledge from other systems.

[mtlawson]

Well, the knowledge is different than what we think of it. If you think of memorization and regurgitation, that's what Watson does. It recognizes turns of phrase to search databases for the right information. If the information is there, it will find it.

Deep Blue was a rule and move cruncher; you put enough processes together and it would analyze every chess move of every game it had been programmed with to formulate a strategy. If you try something completely new with Deep Blue, it would have issues.

Either way, neither machine is able to create a new piece of knowledge by guessing or a "eureka" moment. Right now, there simply isn't the capability for a computer to rewire itself with the accumulation of new knowledge.

[karen_w_newton]

>,,, the capability for a computer to rewire itself with the accumulation of new knowledge.

Which, if you think about it, is a good description of the human brain in infancy.

[karen_w_newton]

Well, that is a question! They would have to give Deep Blue a tutorial on trivia, and a buzzer pushing device. I wonder if Watson would be any good at chess?