Interesting but something was definitely lost with the reveal that Watson is fed text files "electronically".
Psyched About Watson?
- Thread starter thestrangequark
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^You mean rather than "hearing/reading" them along w/everyone else?
Just think of him as deaf and reading the clues rather than listening to Alex. Surely you wouldn't hold it against a deaf man that he reads rather than listens (which I imagine is what the best contestants do, since you can read in your head faster than Alex can read outloud).
And I agree, that was 27 types of cool, several of which have yet to be named.
Just think of him as deaf and reading the clues rather than listening to Alex. Surely you wouldn't hold it against a deaf man that he reads rather than listens (which I imagine is what the best contestants do, since you can read in your head faster than Alex can read outloud).
And I agree, that was 27 types of cool, several of which have yet to be named.
That was really neat. Really liking this. It's interesting to note that it seems to have difficulty with decades. It was never sure on any of them in that category. Maybe it's because decades are less compared to a specific year?
I don't know if I'd say it was lost in knowing that detail though. It only seemed fair for the audience to know what the contestants were up against.
I don't know if I'd say it was lost in knowing that detail though. It only seemed fair for the audience to know what the contestants were up against.
I loved Part I. It did surprise me that some of the clues actually stumped Watson. So if Watson wins, what do you think it will do with the $$$$$?
I'm very impressed by what the IBM engineers achieved there, but isn't Watson kind of cheating since "he" obviously has a much faster reaction time than a human? Of course you could say that's just an advantage a computer has, but still, it makes things a lot easier for "him" to be able to buzz in first every time "he" wants to answer, doesn't it?
Well, while Watson is technically faster, I think the search through the database offsets that a bit, so, no, I don't think it's cheating. They've also explained that it only buzzes when it's sure on an answer, unlike humans who might buzz before they've actually got an answer.
Not exactly, Watson assigns a certain "certainty" percentage to each possible answer and decides whether or not to buzz in based on the risk - if it's a low value question "he" maybe needs to be only 60% sure to take the chance, in other cases maybe it needs to be 95% sure.
But after watching the episode, there were a couple questions where Watson was very sure of "his" answer, and one of the others buzzed in first anyway, so it seems at least "he's" not instantaneous with "his" reaction. He still seems to be faster than the humans though. Most of the time they only got the opportunity to answer when Watson didn't understand the question.
But after watching the episode, there were a couple questions where Watson was very sure of "his" answer, and one of the others buzzed in first anyway, so it seems at least "he's" not instantaneous with "his" reaction. He still seems to be faster than the humans though. Most of the time they only got the opportunity to answer when Watson didn't understand the question.
I don't think that's an issue. Being better at something isn't cheating. It's not like Watson is breaking the rules of the game.
People all have skills and deficits, so are better and quicker at some things than other things. Fast reaction time is one of Watson's skills, but the game requires much more than that.
To answer seriously, IBM plans to donate any winnings to charity, and both human contestants have pledged to donate half of their winnings to charity as well.I loved Part I. It did surprise me that some of the clues actually stumped Watson. So if Watson wins, what do you think it will do with the $$$$$?
It's a good point about humans buzzing in without the same certainty threshold that Watson has programmed. The perfect example was when Ken buzzed in without knowing an answer in the decades category and took the time to make an educated guess. Something else that struck me as interesting was how different Watson's strategy is to human contestants'. Humans tend to stay more in one place on the board, often only leaving categories when someone else chooses something new. Watson, on the other hand, was all over the place.
I suppose, in a competition like this, things will come down to that classic sci-fi trope: are a computer's brains worth more than a man's intuition?
Well, that's not exactly contradicting what I said.
Oh and I wonder if the category picking was completely random. It struck me as odd that it would keep picking the category that it had the most trouble with.
I just felt it lost a layer of cool without that touch and made it harder to think of it as a level playing field (whether or not it was).
Ok, tonight was rather awesome. Watson cleaned the competition up. Also found it hilarious during the bonus round when Watson wasn't sure about its answer and answered Toronto, and wagered only $946, with Alex saying, "Oh, you sneak!"
Same here. When I first heard about this the most interesting thing would have been the system's speech recognition. If it's being fed data, it's a lot less interesting because the questions are being converted to something a computer can understand much easier. Still cool to see though. I wonder how soon before this gets converted for use in a search engine?
From what was said in the first show, Watson gets the question in text format but it's the exact same wording and at the same time as the other two contestants so not sure it actually becomes any easier.
On top of that, Watson's not actually about speech recognition (which as anyone who's ever worked with it can tell you requires a lot of "training" for the software and even then isn't 100%
What wasn't clear to me was the buzzing mechanism. It seemed that Watson beeped in electronically, rather than have a robotic hand and clicker attached. Since it takes a few fractions of a second to push a button, the humans seemed to be at an unfair disadvantage.
Still it was fun. I think just to mess with them IBM should have had him say "I'm sorry Alex, I can't do that."
Still it was fun. I think just to mess with them IBM should have had him say "I'm sorry Alex, I can't do that."
That's not what the first episode indicated, when they showed a contraption designed to hit the button. Alex Trebek was on a talk show today and he clarified that. Watson sends a signal that physically makes the contraption hit the button. In that respect, I don't see it any different than a human brain sends signals to parts of your body, like a hand that hits a buzzer. So, the method is part electronic, part mechanical.
And from a Wired article:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/02/ibm-watson-speed/
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It seems like there were a few times in tonight's episode where Watson had an answer he was really confident in, but the others managed to buzz in first, so if Watson has an advantage, it's not much of one.
This was a pretty interesting event. Congrats to IBM for developing a computer system able to compete on Jeopardy and to the Jeopardy producers for letting this event take place.
Oh yeah, one last thing: I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.
