2 turtle doves

12/24/2010 11:39:10 PM

check it: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/ibm-demonstrates-watson-supercomputer-in-jeopardy-practice-match/

1/13/2011 11:13:43 AM

So I'm thinking about throwing a get-together on the 15th to see what happens. Anyone interested in the hope mills area? This would be a free-pizza and non alcoholic drink event (the venue doesn't allow alcohol...)

Although watson drinking games sound AWESOME

1/13/2011 11:30:39 AM

ha i'm doing something similar.

<-- nerd.

1/13/2011 11:37:31 AM

holy shit. this thing is good.

1/13/2011 4:33:18 PM

^^, ^^^

haha i too am doing this, mostly with people from work

1/13/2011 6:47:34 PM

Watson brings home the bacon in a test round at an ibm research center...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110114/ap_on_hi_te/us_man_vs_machine;_ylt=Aj.KZdZ5fkckko74CaxqGXes0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFlaXBtNzVjBHBvcwMxMTYEc2VjA2FjY29yZGlvbl9zY2llbmNlBHNsawNjb21wdXRlcmNvdWw-

1/16/2011 2:30:12 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/06/16/magazine/watson-trivia-game.html?ref=magazine

Play against Watson in a round of jeopardy.

1/17/2011 9:41:53 PM

Nova special is on tonight.

Right now.

[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 10:01 PM. Reason : ]

2/9/2011 10:00:36 PM

^oh snap - is it coming on again?

Also, I got raped in the "old timey clothing" category

2/10/2011 1:25:39 AM

^ check your local listings… NOVA episodes normally have a re-air time though.

2/10/2011 6:44:23 PM

7 points down because of misspelling pituitary and i said "bell pepper" instead of "alexander graham bell pepper" in before and after. would've gotten those on the real show i'm pretty sure. text jeopardy always has problems like this it seems.

2/10/2011 6:49:23 PM

First episode tonight

2/14/2011 5:39:01 PM

i'm on the west coast so i took the west coast test.

apparently it was way harder than the other versions. i maybe got like half the questions.

2/14/2011 5:55:57 PM

Google failed for the only actual Jeopardy question I checked:
In May 1898 Portugal celebrated the 400th anniversary of this explorer's arrival in India.

It returned Christopher Columbus. The correct answer did not appear in any of the results I checked.

2/15/2011 11:06:34 AM

watson currently raping right now

watson wins 1st round $35,000 to $10,400 (brad rutter) to $4,800 (ken jennings)

inexplicably missed the final category of U.S. Cities by naming "What is Toronto?????" but only wagered like $970, lol



[Edited on February 15, 2011 at 7:57 PM. Reason : .]

2/15/2011 7:42:12 PM

I don't understand how they can make it so smart about 95% of the things out there and then fail so easily on some of the easy things.

If the Final Jeopardy category is "US Cities" at least have it give an answer that IS AN ACTUAL US CITY. I guess they just don't include the category in it's thought process. Yesterday the category was villains and it's top answer was Harry Potter. It's just common (human) sense that if the category is villains, the answers are going to contain the names of actual villains. Same with something like US Cities. It seems like such an easy thing to get right. Then again, what the fuck do I know?

2/15/2011 8:00:30 PM

Terminator is out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQFXneSROf8#t=01m16s

2/15/2011 9:14:39 PM

^^

http://thenumerati.net/index.cfm?postID=726

or even better:

http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/02/watson-on-jeopardy-day-two-the-confusion-over-an-airport-clue.html

[Edited on February 15, 2011 at 9:25 PM. Reason : .]

2/15/2011 9:20:53 PM

Quote :

"I don't understand how they can make it so smart about 95% of the things out there and then fail so easily on some of the easy things. If the Final Jeopardy category is "US Cities" at least have it give an answer that IS AN ACTUAL US CITY. I guess they just don't include the category in it's thought process. Yesterday the category was villains and it's top answer was Harry Potter. It's just common (human) sense that if the category is villains, the answers are going to contain the names of actual villains. Same with something like US Cities. It seems like such an easy thing to get right. Then again, what the fuck do I know?"

I'm gonna guess that you weren't a CSC major...not that I know a goddamn thing more about how the damned robot works.

Here's a blog post explaining what happened. The category title only factors in slightly because it often involves wordplay beyond what the machine can comprehend or it's only tangentially related. The basic thing, though, is that you HAVE to answer on Final Jeopardy, while it normally only answers when it's pretty sure.

A human with the ability to Google (assuming a lack of prior knowledge, which I certainly didn't have) would be hard pressed to find 1)a US city 2)whose largest airport was named after a WWII hero and 3)whose second largest airport was named after a WWII battle. Nevertheless, IBM programmed a computer well enough to try its best but know that it was probably wrong. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

On an unrelated note, it was kind of awesome to see Ken Jennings as humiliated as, well, every other human being Ken Jennings ever played against.

2/15/2011 9:41:22 PM

After watching Ken and Brad attempting to press their buzzers as Watson "rang in first" after every single question I have to call this a farce. Yes I know there is a mechanical buzzer Watson has to press, but it's clear when you've watched many Jeopardy episodes that you never see "all three" contestants pressing their buzzers as soon as possible as you see in the Watson episodes. There is a clear advantage to Watson in physical reaction that is driving his ability.

You have to "Buzz in" after Alex is done reading the question and Watson wins in reaction time, every time, which is why he's winning. So many of the questions have obvious answers within the first second of seeing it up on the screen (even for a human), but every time this happened Watson would "buzz in" first once Alex was done reading the question while you watched Ken and Brad hitting their buzzers as fast as they could.

[Edited on February 15, 2011 at 11:12 PM. Reason : .]

2/15/2011 11:08:34 PM

It reads and processes the clue before Trebek even fucking finishes reading the clue. That's how it can buzz in so fast.

You can't punt on the voice recognition AND get access to the clue faster than the humans.

I agree that it is a farce. It's an IBM infomercial. I hope it backfires on them.

2/15/2011 11:10:58 PM

don't human contestants have the opportunity to read the clue on the screen before trebek finishes reading as well?

2/15/2011 11:13:49 PM

Quote :

"It reads and processes the clue before Trebek even fucking finishes reading the clue. That's how it can buzz in so fast."

I beg to differ, although someone can prove me incorrect since I'm not sure, but supposedly the humans can read the clue while Alex is still reading it outloud.. several of the clues today were so simple that even I would have answered with 100% confidence within the first few words out of more than a dozen that Alex had to read.
I believe you have to "buzz in" after Alex is done reading the question, although I could be wrong about that.. and if I am I wonder what is going on with Ken and Brad, especially with the "Issac Newton" question they just could have answered in less than a second of it appearing on the screen.

2/15/2011 11:16:32 PM

^^ Yes, but it appears that Ken and Brad are trying to buzz in to every single question the instant after the Camera pans to them and Alex has finished reading the question (e.g. they already knew the answer since it was already in written form). Watson "beats" them every time to the buzzer.

Quote :

"If by faster, you mean immediate, then yeah. I don't understand how the humans ever beat it to the button unless they have it occasionally programmed to 'lose' the grab. I don't see how it is fair at all given the total disadvantage with the clickers, a much better contest would involve them all answering the questions and seeing how many the humans got right versus Watson."

[Edited on February 15, 2011 at 11:24 PM. Reason : Quoting WolfAce]

2/15/2011 11:18:09 PM

Quote :

"Q: Hi Ken- Seemed to me, for many of the questions, that the computer was just better at buzzing in. Does Watson have an unfair advantage for timing the buzz-in? Thanks. A: As Jeopardy devotees know, if you're trying to win on the show, the buzzer is all. On any given night, nearly all the contestants know nearly all the answers, so it's just a matter of who masters buzzer rhythm the best. Watson does have a big advantage in this regard, since it can knock out a microsecond-precise buzz every single time with little or no variation. Human reflexes can't compete with computer circuits in this regard. But I wouldn't call this unfair...precise timing just happens to be one thing computers are better at than we humans. It's not like I think Watson should try buzzing in more erratically just to give homo sapiens a chance. "

http://live.washingtonpost.com/jeopardy-ken-jennings.html

2/15/2011 11:29:42 PM

Go through the questions on the show. You can paste the vast majority of them into google and get the right answer in the top links (Excluding the links about this particular jeopardy episode).

So, the ability to retrieve the relevant information from a large knowledge database is not that impressive (any more than google is....).

Responding to the clue with the exact phrase required is a little more interesting, but not machine-triumphing-over-man interesting.

And they punted on the voice recognition. And they have super-human button pushing capabilities.

2/15/2011 11:33:35 PM

For the first time were asking a machine to digest information and regurgitate it when presented a question intentionally formed to trick it. Then take its success or failure and learn to be better at answering questions in the future.

When compared even to google this is a huge leap forward. Google parses knowledge based on how many times it sees it around the web. Therefore when many humans think theinformation is relevant and link it google can crowd source their collective knowledge. This is great for a place notorious for misinformation as better stuff bubbles to the top.

Watson, however, doesnt seem to work this way. It takes a single body of nonrepeating information and through wn iterative process gets better at answering abstract questions by tying together other information. The apppications, therefore are nearly endless. Instead of topics bubbling due to popularity they now bubble due to the validity of their contained information.

At least thats my understanring..........

2/15/2011 11:34:01 PM

Google should come out with its own Jeopardy machine and challenge Watson.


Here are the questions:
http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3575


Google does a pretty fucking good job at getting the answers.

2/15/2011 11:36:19 PM

So what in the top links gives you the answer? You're still parsing that and putting it together.

2/15/2011 11:40:44 PM

This is the kind of stunt that is designed to fool non-computer people.


One half of the problem -- the information retrieval -- has already been solved. Google's search index vs IBM's custom-created knowledge base are 6 of one, a half dozen of the other.

There are free, old NLP toolkits that you can use to process to clue to figure out what part of speech or type of word the question wants. Then, you look near the bold words that google already highlights for you and find the word that best matches the type of word you need.

I have no doubt that there are innovations in the second step, but they are certainly not revolutionary as the IBM marketing video would have you believe. On a lot of these, you barely have to use NLP at all.

2/15/2011 11:59:26 PM

I'm not being negative because I'm a debbie downer. I'm being negative because the whole thing is IBM marketing, and the claims of revolution are a joke. They evolved well-known NLP research annd applied it to a high visibility activity.

This is not HAL 9000.

2/16/2011 12:06:18 AM

Watched it today at Daniel Hall with some IBM's rep. They did a presentation on the reasons why they want to do this/build this and how Watson was designed (but you guys probably seen them talked about it). Its made up of 2880 processing cores and hold 15TB of data--not really impressive but that's not the impressiveness of it. We had a good laugh when Watson wager on his 1st Daily Double ($6542 or something like that). Anyways Ken and Brad got dismantled, Watson $35k to Brad's $5200 (2rd) before Final Jeopardy in which Watson missed and both Ken and Brad double up.

2/16/2011 3:49:28 AM

I love the "Watson beat the humans every time buzzing in" when clearly that was not the case. Several times Watson had a 95+% bar sitting there and wasn't the first to buzz in. Like Jennings said when interviewed, I'm sure he played a lot of people who knew most of the answers he got right, but he was just quicker to buzz in, this is no different.

I fully expect Google to come up with something to challenge Watson though. It'll just be interesting to see if they keep to the requirements of no internet access or not. And while yes this is a giant IBM commercial, but they have something no one else has done before and I'm sure they're paying Jeopardy quite handsomely for this, plus all the proceeds on the show go to charity, so I don't see why this is such a terrible thing. It isn't "rigged" or "staged", I'd say Day One Watson was actually looking less than spectacular, but Day Two, totally lived up to the hype.

It'll just be interesting to see how much Ken and Brad really try today, they've basically already lost and after the crushing yesterday, I can't imagine they'd be very confident.

2/16/2011 8:40:05 AM

2/16/2011 9:53:08 AM

Quote :

"This is the kind of stunt that is designed to fool non-computer people. One half of the problem -- the information retrieval -- has already been solved. Google's search index vs IBM's custom-created knowledge base are 6 of one, a half dozen of the other. There are free, old NLP toolkits that you can use to process to clue to figure out what part of speech or type of word the question wants. Then, you look near the bold words that google already highlights for you and find the word that best matches the type of word you need. I have no doubt that there are innovations in the second step, but they are certainly not revolutionary as the IBM marketing video would have you believe. On a lot of these, you barely have to use NLP at all."

I said all of this on page one. No one agrees though.

2/16/2011 10:26:40 AM

Quote :

"This is the kind of stunt that is designed to fool non-computer people."

I have 3 degrees in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Electrical Engineering. I am currently a graduate student in statistics where I do machine learning. I am impressed by this. It is at least partially an IBM informercial, but there is some legitimate progress here. Tying all of these aspects is not as trivial as you seem to think it is. You can see from the NOVA special that Watson used to be pretty crappy at playing Jeopardy!.

2/16/2011 10:52:59 AM

Google versus IBM would be epic.

2/16/2011 11:19:37 AM

When I clicked this thread, I definitely thought it was about an iPhone app to play Jeopardy.

2/16/2011 11:24:07 AM

OK, so tonight's episode is totally exposing Watson. He does good with history, geography, language, all the stuff found in encyclopedias, but sucks at everything else.

2/16/2011 10:58:55 PM

Surprise, fucking, surprise.

2/17/2011 8:35:12 AM

Quote :

"Google should come out with its own Jeopardy machine and challenge Watson. Here are the questions: http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3575 Google does a pretty fucking good job at getting the answers. "

I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see Google come out with a competitor to Watson, as a response to this. Google is the leader in AI right now, at least from the publicly known systems.

But I don’t see how you see Google as coming up with the answers, as-is.

2/17/2011 8:43:58 AM

http://www.slatev.com/video/ibms-watson-untold-story/

I thought this was an excellent parody. Way better than conan.

2/17/2011 3:12:16 PM

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fwpzj/iama_74time_jeopardy_champion_ken_jennings_i_will/

This is one of the funniest things I've read on the internet in a long time.

3/4/2011 12:37:21 AM

He's hilarious.

Quote :

"5.My Sunday school teacher, when I was a Mormon teen, once memorably advised us that "There's nothing more overrated than sex, and nothing more underrated than a good bowel movement." It totally worked...I don't remember a single other sermon from when I was a kid, but I think about this guy exactly once a day, and then again once a week."

3/4/2011 12:54:34 AM

So when is this app going to be available to buy on my new iPad 2? lolz

3/4/2011 2:30:32 AM

I thought the input method was bullshit and non-transparent. The mechanics of the buzzer were bullshit and non-transparent. None of the answers were clever either. Was there even a before and after category? It was a godamned 2 day long IBM commercial.

3/4/2011 1:54:54 PM

I didn't watch it, I just read up the highlights from friends... something something something, matrix, death, nuke, something

3/4/2011 2:34:39 PM

6/8/2011 8:48:51 PM

^ I literally LOL'd

6/8/2011 10:30:36 PM