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Re: [ontolog-forum] IBM Watson & source code

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Mike Pool" <mikepool@xxxxxxxxx>
From: "Christopher Spottiswoode" <cms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 12:55:20 +0200
Message-id: <93DC9A34B5C0449399882C2CB19AC0A2@klaptop>
Thanks so much, Mike, for this link!    (01)

> There was a very entertaining discussion with Ken Jennings in the 
> online WaPo today: 
> http://live.washingtonpost.com/jeopardy-ken-jennings.html    (02)

That must be one of the most delightful interviews I've ever read, 
and it certainly displays what a wonderful personality its subject 
is.    (03)

It is instructive too.  One exchange that seems very relevant to 
this Forum is this one:    (04)

Q:  It was interesting to me that the "Which decade" category seemed 
especially hard for Watson. Why was that?    (05)

A:  I think it took it a little while to figure out that the answers 
would all be decades.  This seems incredible to a human playing 
along at home, but basic contextual issues like this are incredibly 
hard for machine intelligence to master.  The cool thing about 
Watson is it learns from those mistakes.  By the end of the 
category, it had learned that the answers were going to be decades, 
and adjusted accordingly.    (06)

It is clearly the modern descendent of "Joshua," the learning 
computer in the 1980s movie WarGames.  "How about a nice game of 
Jeopardy, Ken?"  "No, let's play Global Thermonuclear War."
[end of quote]    (07)

Then (and no surprise for some of you, I hope...), I venture to add 
that "basic contextual issues like this" also feature in another 
scheme you're soon going be reading more of here.    (08)

Christopher     (09)


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