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While parent post is full-of-it on the general question of replicating Watson's full bag-of-techniques against client problems in a weekend, I believe the Watso

by gojomo 8y ago

While parent post is full-of-it on the general question of replicating Watson's full bag-of-techniques against client problems in a weekend, I believe the Watson Jeopardy victory was far less impressive than it seemed. It's a very-constrained domain, and the challenge Watson won has never been opened to scrappy teams other than IBM. I wrote up my doubts way back in 2011: https://memesteading.com/2011/02/16/ibm-watson-overprovisioned-big-iron/ https://memesteading.com/2011/02/16/ibm-watson-overprovision... Here in 2018, I suspect a clever focused team could make a MacBook, with current dumps of Wikipedia/Wikidata and a few other key reference materials, competitive in most Jeopardy matches in a week or two. And, with 6 months to a year, as dominant as "Watson" was against the Jeopardy champs.

dmreedy 8y ago
I've had the pleasure of interacting with the codebase that played Jeopardy! and from where I stand, it's still one of the most impressive and beautifully-orchestrated systems I've ever seen. You are correct in your write-up though. Wikipedia titles are super helpful, where they exist.
goatlover 8y ago
> And, with 6 months to a year, as dominant as "Watson" was against the Jeopardy champs. Was Watson dominant because it had a buzzer advantage, or because it could answer the questions better? I recall the other two guys furiously trying to hit the button on different occasions and sighing when Watson beat them out yet again. Thing is we don't know that Watson was better at answering the questions, only that it was better in the Jeopardy game play the way things were setup.
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