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Re: [ontolog-forum] IBM Watson on Jeopardy

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Ron Wheeler <rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 22:02:06 -0500
Message-id: <4D589B2E.9040807@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On 13/02/2011 9:45 PM, John F. Sowa wrote:
> Patrick and Jack,
>
> Some comments:
>
> PD
>> Minsky did not sound bitter to me.
>>
>> Disappointed that the news media has bestowed the AI crown on a system
>> with no more understanding of Jeopardy than an orrery has of
>> astrophysics, but not bitter.
> I don't understand that criticism.
>
> Does a program that proves a theorem understand theorem proving?
> When Cyc answers a question, does it understand question answering
> any better than Watson?
>
> Note that Watson generates hypotheses about what a question is
> asking for, evaluates alternative proposed answers, and uses
> deduction as a "reality check" on the answer.  That seems to
> be more sophisticated than an inference engine that just
> carries out a straightforward deduction.
>
> JP
>> I agree that media has its own way of blowing things out of
>> proportion, but, as one who is doing a thesis research project that
>> only barely scratches the edges of the innovation found inside Watson,
>> I can only stand in solid recognition of towering accomplishment.
> I agree.  Cyc has been working on commonsense reasoning since 1984.
> They defined 600 thousand concept types with 6 million axioms.  But
> Watson has demonstrated quite a bit of common sense in answering a
> broader range of difficult questions than Cyc has.
>
> I would claim that Watson has found a better way.  I can understand
> why Minsky might be jealous, but I don't know why he would be bitter.
> I think it's great that Watson is showing that AI-based technology
> can answer some difficult questions better than most humans.
>
> It's difficult to find good metrics for evaluating AI systems.
> Chess was one, but it was too specialized.  Jeopardy is much
> closer to commonsense reasoning.
That much horsepower applied to chess would not even be interesting let 
alone impressive.    (01)

Jeopardy is a much more interesting game to test matching wits with humans.    (02)


Ron
> John
>
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>    (03)


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