Machine Kicks Ass on Jeopardy

[NGNM85]

"Today is the day computers took over…game shows. In a brief exhibition match in upstate New York, IBM’s pure language processing computer, Watson (http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/), faced the titans of Jeopardy: Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson won. Sure, it was a brief sparring session, and the real trials won’t air until February, but it looks like Watson has a good shot at becoming the world’s champion of trivia. Alex Trebek didn’t preside over this preliminary match, but he was on hand to watch Watson go toe to toe with some of the top human competitors from the history of Jeopardy. He joked that the computer would soon be on sale on eBay. Not quite, Trebek, but IBM engineers do think that Moore’s law will allow everyone to have their own Watson years from now. Considering how well the computer performed against Jennings and Rutter I’m sure the two of them will be among the first in line. Watch Watson’s stellar performance in the video below. I’ll take The “AIs” Have It for $2000, Alex.

After a brief opening session, the scores were Jennings $3400, Watson $4400, and Rutter $1200:

As mentioned in our previous discussion (http://singularityhub.com/2010/06/17/ibms-watson-takes-on-jeopardy-you-can-challenge-the-computer-to-a-trivia-duel-video/), Watson draws its information from a personal database, not the internet. It can answer most Jeopardy questions in about three seconds. To do so, Watson uses massive amounts of parallel computing power. Inside the large machine are racks of servers, over 2000 cores, with 15 terabytes of RAM, and about 80 teraflops of processing power. Yet all of this hardware is more or less “off the shelf”. What makes Watson really unique is the way it processes language. IBM developed the DeepQA project (of which Watson is a part) to be able to provide human-like answers to human-asked questions. That means it has to understand the ambiguities and intricacies of human speech – a medium of communication notorious for its acceptable mistakes and imprecision. Using its vast database of literature, scientific reports, and other documents, Watson develops ideas of how often words are associated with other words, and what meanings are extracted from those connections. Add in a few rules about how to best play Jeopardy, and you are most of the way towards building a computer that can defeat humans at their own game."

Read the rest of the article and watch the machine terminate the competition at SingularityHub;
http://singularityhub.com/2011/01/13/watch-the-watson-computer-kick-jeopardys-ass-video/

What I want to know is; What is it going to do with the prize $$$?:confused:

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

It's not Moore's Law that's responsible for achievements such as this; it's programming.

[MarxSchmarx]

Shit.

I thought the human race still stood a chance a month ago:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1959227&postcount=1

What I want to know is; What is it going to do with the prize $$$?
I think IBM's cash winnings were going to be donated to charity.


It's not Moore's Law that's responsible for achievements such as this; it's programming.

Moore's law is dead and has been so for several years -although in this case it's actually improvements in parallel processing which is largely equal parts hardware and software improvements.

[ckaihatsu]

What I want to know is; What is it going to do with the prize $$$?:confused:


Robot prostitutes.


No -- wait, wait -- lemme start over:





What I want to know is; What is it going to do with the prize $$$?:confused:


Artificial stimulation.


x D

[Meridian]

This is an impressive display of computer power and programming.

Similarly, training a parrot to regurgitate correct answers in a setting like this would be a display of incredibly good training.

[Amphictyonis]

It's not Moore's Law that's responsible for achievements such as this; it's programming.

No silly, only through capitalist competition can progress be made ;)

[NGNM85]

Robot prostitutes.


No -- wait, wait -- lemme start over:





Artificial stimulation.


x D


I was thinking it might abscond to Costa Rica with the Xerox machine, or maybe they could settle down and have an iPod.

[ckaihatsu]

I was thinking it might abscond to Costa Rica with the Xerox machine, or maybe they could settle down and have an iPod.


It taps into Skynet and emerges victorious on The Price Is Right and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire....

Things go sour, though, when it takes on Deep Blue in chess and submits "What is oxygen?" for its first move....

[ckaihatsu]

Similarly, training a parrot to regurgitate correct answers in a setting like this would be a display of incredibly good training.


Better known as "kindergarten through 12th grade".... (gasps) (applause)

[Os Cangaceiros]

damn. big ups to my robot homies.

Do try and be kind to your future humanoid slaves. :crying:

[ckaihatsu]

I was thinking it might abscond to Costa Rica with the Xerox machine, or maybe they could settle down and have an iPod.


Then they'd rock the house on The Newlywed Game....


= )


The day they can be programmed to do polemics and comedy online RevLeft will no longer be my home....


|%^ (


= D


On the better side of things maybe they'll be better at arguing and convincing the entire world into socialism...!


x D

[The Vegan Marxist]

I wanna see this machine go head-to-head in Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?! :D

[Political_Chucky]

Its a computer. Is this really that amazing?

[NGNM85]

Its a computer. Is this really that amazing?

In short; yes.

Why is it amazing? Several reasons;

1. This feat was impossible just a few years ago. This demonstrates the breathtaking speed at which computer technology is progressing. (As an aside, at present, genetics is actually even drastically outpacing computer technology.)

2. It's impressive if you actually think about how this machine 'hears' speech, translates it into text, and performs an enormous amount of computation to arrive at the correct answer fast enough to beat the humans to the buzzer most of the time.

3. It's impressive if you think about what it means, about what the next step, or the 20th step down the line could be. We're increasingly close to technology that will fundamentally transform the human condition, this is Promethean fire, here.

[Klaatu]

This is all very impressive, but not surprising. I am not surprised that a machine can dig up facts at the speed of light.
But then, this IS still a machine.

But too bad that the human "machines" at Fox News have so much trouble getting at the real facts. :D

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Some humans are always moving the goalposts in order to reassure themselves that computers will never impinge upon their cherished domains.

The problem for those kind of people is, technology marches on (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TechnologyMarchesOn), encroaching on more of the spaces previously marked in those peoples' minds as "Humans Only".

[ckaihatsu]

3. It's impressive if you think about what it means, about what the next step, or the 20th step down the line could be. We're increasingly close to technology that will fundamentally transform the human condition, this is Promethean fire, here.


Okay, I'll bite and say that just as cell phones are virtually ubiquitous -- even in poorer parts of the world -- we may soon enough have the general-purpose robot butlers of historic fantasy. The "critical mass" of standardized information (Wikipedia), combined with a quick, efficient pipelining of it for realtime processing in real-world situations means that the energy question may finally be cracked -- if your robot butler can be the ultimate gofer and provide for all of your material needs in some satisfactory regard then maybe even us socialists will be rendered obsolete in due time...(!)...(?)

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Okay, I'll bite and say that just as cell phones are virtually ubiquitous -- even in poorer parts of the world -- we may soon enough have the general-purpose robot butlers of historic fantasy. The "critical mass" of standardized information (Wikipedia), combined with a quick, efficient pipelining of it for realtime processing in real-world situations means that the energy question may finally be cracked -- if your robot butler can be the ultimate gofer and provide for all of your material needs in some satisfactory regard then maybe even us socialists will be rendered obsolete in due time...(!)...(?)

Are you trying to be clever or witty? Because you're failing on both counts. What is the meaning of this bunch of non-sequiters? Especially ironic coming from someone who has the temerity to accuse me of bouncing around topics. :rolleyes:

[ckaihatsu]

Are you trying to be clever or witty? Because you're failing on both counts. What is the meaning of this bunch of non-sequiters? Especially ironic coming from someone who has the temerity to accuse me of bouncing around topics. :rolleyes:


Just try reading it a second time -- your comprehension skills have been decent in past exchanges, from what I've seen....

[NGNM85]

Hasta la vista, baby. IBM's WATSON supercomputer beats the shit out of the humans, answering all but five questions and winning $35,000.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/15/jeopardy-computer-crushes_n_823782.html

[Revy]

It totally failed Final Jeopardy. The category was U.S. cities yet it answered Toronto.

[NGNM85]

It totally failed Final Jeopardy. The category was U.S. cities yet it answered Toronto.

True, but it got all but four other questions right, and it was able to come up with the correct answers before the men on stage could click their buzzers. That's an amazing achievement. You can look at it two ways; you can look at all the things it can't do, or you can say; 'Look at how far we've come.'

[Metacomet]

Jeopardy is all about the buzzer (the two champions admit it)

And Watson is the true buzzer champion.

I'd like to see all 61 questions answered by the three with no buzzer and see how Watson does. I'd suspect the people might have a chance

Still interesting and impressive to watch though. It is a rather annoying IBM ad at times though.

[Pavlov's House Party]

Jeopardy has apparently been taken over -- 'conquered' if you will -- by a master race of intelligent robots. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the robots will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new robotic overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted internet poster, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground coltan mines.

[Pavlov's House Party]

Seriously though, the technology is incredibly impressive but makes the game show super boring; I saw it last night and the two human contestants only answered around 7 questions altogether.

[NGNM85]

Jeopardy has apparently been taken over -- 'conquered' if you will -- by a master race of intelligent robots. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the robots will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new robotic overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted internet poster, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground coltan mines.

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/lsujester/bsg_centurion1.jpg

"I'll take 'Sports', for $400, Alex."