Watson the IBM super computer beats Jeopardy's top champions!

But they're always getting better at employing high level language. One of the effects of having computer systems with larger memories and faster bandwidths is that they don't have to have optimized assembly code. I'm quite amazed by how my small smart phone is always trying to write out words as I begin to type on it. Google always tells me what I should have typed, had I done better with my spelling. Likewise, even the relatively small computer that's in my car will automatically recognize and understand my voice: something I had to train my PC when I first tried out voice recognition software when I was in highschool. I'm more amazed by those things then a computer being able to recall things in its memory. Who knows how sophisticated computers will be in another 40 years: the speed and the amount of memory in my smart phone absolutely trumps the specs on my grandfather's first "portable" calculator....or even the Apollo spacecraft. In the end, though, computers are staying the same in which they are tools that are only as good as how they're designed.

 

There's a Q & A with Ken Jennings at Jeopardy! Champ Ken Jennings - The Washington Post.

 

"it's all in the buzzer rythm, and human reflexes can't beat a computer at that." - ken jennings

 

From Wikipedia:
Clarke noted that, contrary to popular rumor, it was a complete coincidence that each of the letters of HAL's name immediately preceded those of IBM in the alphabet.[33] The meaning of HAL has been given both as "Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer" and as "Heuristic ALgorithmic computer". The former appears in Clarke's novel of 2001 and the latter in his sequel novel 2010.

 

YES, bisco, this is huge. For the most part, it's not that Ken and Brad didn't know those answers (or questions...), of course they do. I remember reading a long time ago that in Jeopardy, if you ring in too early you get "locked out" to prevent people from clicking repeatedly on the buzzer during the reading of the answer.

While the programming for language comprehension we witnessed is incredible, the buzzer timing realization is key to understand that the computer's "knowledge" over its opponents is not at all proportional to its dollar earnings over theirs, if it is at all.

 

For those who missed the show

Day 1 part 1

Day 1 part 2

Day 2 part 1

 

As a Watson fan, I still have to say: could Watson do this?

(Yes, you must take the time to watch this...)

 

With enough programing you can get Watson to give funnier answers than these people.

 

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I love those old Family Feud ones...

 

I just finished watching a the NOVA | Smartest Machine on Earth (had to wait for the rerun, hate watching stuff online). It was quite good and insightful.

It was good background info even for those who studied computer science and/or done programming. It is funny that David Ferrucci (the team leader) does look like Carlos Solis on Desperate Housewives. I really noticed it after seeing him enough times in the Nova ep.

 

Those who were interested in the computer science aspect would probably like

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I'm about 2/3rds done watching this on my TiVo.