> I started a company called Cognitive Systems in 1981. Ahh. So just from the article, his gripe is of the “begs the question” sort — he’s not pleased with the

> I started a company called Cognitive Systems in 1981. Ahh. So just from the article, his gripe is of the “begs the question” sort — he’s not pleased with the evolution of idiom. Since he was doing “real AI” back then, who are these frauds to claim they are doing AI? His point may or may not be valid, but his specific argument is quite weak. He notes that even a person, an actual intelligence, wouldn’t know what Dylan was singing about without context. He goes on to presume that Watson doesn’t have context, but who’s to say? Watson could certainly read all the articles about Dylan that he so helpfully cites, and come to “understand” the songs. And maybe Watson has. If you follow the links to his academy, you divine a bit more of the motivation. His software development course provides “a unique automated mentor, employing natural-language processing technology derived from our decades of artificial intelligence research”. He is desperate to stay away from calling it actual AI, yet can’t resist implying that it is. This is probably most irksome to him. My advice: sometimes you have to join ‘em.