Watson, robot competes in jeopardy

[Combs]

Oh god, the machines have already won. Who else can't wait for the singularity?

[Ornette]

It was a tie in the first round.

While it did look like it was going to be a blowout early on, it's obvious there's not going to be any singularity anytime soon. Writing a chess program is a cakewalk compared to what they're trying to do here with natural language and association.

[Combs]

Yeah, I actually found it pretty funny when He guessed 1920s right after Ken. Alex played it off pretty well

[Joseph the PRPD]

Bring it on, Skynet.

[Xard]

Good. Soon we can leave the planet for our robot successors and quietly die away.

[Zaque]

Although I'm looking forward to the singularity myself, Watson is more of an exercise in brute force computation without any internal representation of meaning. I'm sure that there was much to be learned in the creation of Watson, but because it is too specialized, it's probably better to call it something of a hack rather than anything near a general intelligence. The next couple of days will be entertaining, nonetheless.

[KnightmareX13]

Just watched the latest match. Watson took the lead and blew the two [s]carbon base life forms[/s] contestants out of the water taking a huge lead.

[drinian]

something of a hack rather than anything near a general intelligence

Generalized AI is a pipe dream; not even humans have unlimited intelligence. This is pretty amazing, even if it's only good at guessing the answers to trivia questions.

[Ornette]

One of the things that I don't think they covered is how Watson is rigged to hit the buzzer. I'm willing to bet that many times the other 2 knew the answer but either got themselves locked out of the buzzer or their reactions weren't fast enough.

What I mean by being locked out is the light under the Jeopardy board that indicates when the buzzers can be pressed. After the question is read, the indicator comes on and THEN everyone can press the buzzers. If they press too early, they get locked out for 1 second. If there's some optical sensor detecting the visual indicator, then of course Watson is going to be able to press the buzzer first. That's a bit unfair to the other contestants.

[KnightmareX13]

One of the things that I don't think they covered is how Watson is rigged to hit the buzzer. I'm willing to bet that many times the other 2 knew the answer but either got themselves locked out of the buzzer or their reactions weren't fast enough.

What I mean by being locked out is the light under the Jeopardy board that indicates when the buzzers can be pressed. After the question is read, the indicator comes on and THEN everyone can press the buzzers. If they press too early, they get locked out for 1 second. If there's some optical sensor detecting the visual indicator, then of course Watson is going to be able to press the buzzer first. That's a bit unfair to the other contestants.

during the first part of the competition they showed the buzzing mechanism that Watson uses, basically they attached a servo to a piston which pushes the button.

[Ornette]

during the first part of the competition they showed the buzzing mechanism that Watson uses, basically they attached a servo to a piston which pushes the button.

I saw that, but how do they let Watson know *when* to press the buzzer? There's a visual indicator under the categories and answers to let the contestants know when they can press the buzzer. Essentially, the contestants know the answer before Alex finishes reading the question 90% of the time or something like that. What determines whether they can answer is their reaction to the buzzer indicator (which is off the screen, but if you've seen the Ken documentary, they show you the mechanism and the light indicator). If this is something rigged electronically to Watson, it's not really fair because the human contestants will need to beat an electrically rigged one.

[Combs]

Ken's comment at the end was pretty funnHAIL WATSON