The Sword and Laser discussion

So a computer named Watson designed by IBM is playing against two Jeopardy champions in a game of Jeopardy.

I missed the first episode but I just watched the second which had some info about the Watson itself and the Double Jeopardy and Final Jeopardy round. I'm guessing yesterday's episode was only the first Jeopardy round.

***Spoilers for today's episode of Jeopardy******
At the end of today's episode Watson is trouncing the two Jeopardy champions.

So is this the start of the singularity? How long from here until we can have a computer just solve all our problems for us? Would you ever have imagined that one of the first true tests of AI would be appearing in a game show?

Our cable was really messing up with the station that Jeopardy's on. It was losing sound, freezing and pixelating. We didn't get to catch much of it. We were wondering if the biggest problem might be that the humans couldn't buzz in as fast as Watson.

Wouldn't they do better with a Sherlock Holmes computer?

They should have just went ahead and named the computer Skynet.

I've been impressed with Watson's ability to respond correctly to most of the questions it buzzes in on. And that's the key to Jeopardy (you'll have to read Ken Jenning's thoughts on that). I do believe Watson has an unfair advantage in that respect compared to the two humans.

However, Watson's response to final Jeopardy disappointed.

Neil wrote: "They should have just went ahead and named the computer Skynet."

It'll turn into Skynet if it loses.

Sandi wrote: "We were wondering if the biggest problem might be that the humans couldn't buzz in as fast as Watson. "

Watson actually had to use a mechanical device to buzz in, (hopefully) eliminating the electron vs. muscle speed advantage.

Brian wrote: "Watson actually had to use a mechanical device to buzz in, (hopefully) eliminating the electron vs. muscle speed advantage. "


Still it seemed like Watson was getting in there faster most of the time.

All in all, the buzzer itself doesn't matter. It's just amazing how many questions Watson is able to answer correctly.

It really seemed like Watson was able to come to a "high probability" answer so quickly that machine buzzer vs human buzzer was irrelevant.

I've missed every episode so far but apparently tonight's episode of Nova is about Watson; so I might check that out.

Well it's a gimmick like any of these "machine vs man" things. I'm not really impressed on that angle. The programming behind it is impressive though. I just wish they'd do more useful things with it.

Larry wrote: "Well it's a gimmick like any of these "machine vs man" things. I'm not really impressed on that angle. The programming behind it is impressive though. I just wish they'd do more useful things w..."

Well it's a gimmick but it can lead to useful applications . They are already talking about how it might be applied to help doctors by taking plain English descriptions of symptoms and returning similar cases. A machine that can win at Jeopardy may sound dumb but its just a simple test case that will pay dividends later on.