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Re: [ontolog-forum] IBM Watson @ RPI Presentation

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 10:47:52 -0400
Message-id: <52138198.8060404@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Kingsley,    (01)

Thanks for the reference to the way RPI is developing a version
of IBM's Watson, with collaboration from IBM:    (02)

http://www.slideshare.net/jahendler/watson-summer-review82013final    (03)

They are replacing some of the Watson components, such as the parser,
with open-source versions.    (04)

They are also simplifying the system to improve the performance
on a typical server instead of IBM's supercomputer with 2880 cores.
The full Watson system had 100 different algorithms to handle the
many kinds of trick Jeopardy! questions.  All those algorithms could
be evaluated in parallel on a system with a large number of cores.    (05)

On a more typical server, they had to reduce the number of algorithms.
Therefore, they put more emphasis on the kind of factual questions
that can be answered from the DBpedia and similar sources.    (06)

IBM's original Watson did use DBpedia, but the hardest task was
to anticipate the many Jeopardy! variations that deliberately
obfuscate the goal.  For simple questions, the number of variations
is much smaller.    (07)

But for medical diagnoses and other kinds of research, the answer
is certainly not obvious, even without any deliberate obfuscation.
There are also many non-research questions that plague computer users.    (08)

For example, an obscure feature buried in some maze of menus might
solve some problem you face.  If you don't know the name of the
feature, whether it exists, or how it would help you, no words that
you choose will lead to the correct answer in DBpedia or an RDBMS.    (09)

That is where more research is needed.    (010)

John    (011)

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