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A simulation of what? It can actually answer Jeopardy questions. As good or better than the best Jeopardy player on the planet. (We will see.) Another task, pr

by ugh 16y ago

A simulation of what? It can actually answer Jeopardy questions. As good or better than the best Jeopardy player on the planet. (We will see.) Another task, previously only conquered by evolution, now conquered by algorithms written by humans. Watson doesn’t pretend to be good at Jeopardy, it just is.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago
It can simulate an intelligence answering Jeopardy questions.
- ugh 16y ago
  It actually answers questions, no trickery involved. It might not use the same algorithms humans use to answer those questions but that isn’t really that important, nobody ever claimed it does. I don’t see the simulation. I see a machine that is genuinely good at playing Jeopardy.
gjm11 16y ago
> Another task, previously only conquered by evolution I'm pretty sure that Jeopardy performance as such has not been strongly selected for among the ancestors of present day H. sapiens. (And the related things that may have been -- effective language use, good memory, etc. -- are not so obviously "conquered by algorithms written by humans" however well Watson does.)
- ugh 16y ago
  That sentence was written for its poetic impact, not its accuracy, I think it’s nevertheless somewhat defensible. Humans were obviously never selected for playing Jeopardy and evolution didn’t in that sense “conquer” Jeopardy (like dinosaurs “conquering” flying) but evolution nevertheless produced humans which are very good at playing Jeopardy. (We know of nothing else in this universe that can even only understand the rules of Jeopardy. Except for human-built machines.) That we can build a machine which is just as good as we are at playing the game obviously doesn’t mean that this machine is as intelligent as humans, it’s nevertheless quite impressive.
losvedir 16y ago
> It can actually answer Jeopardy questions. I think you mean, it can actually question Jeopardy answers. Sigh... I always hated that about the show.
- ugh 16y ago
  That sounds like a fun diversion! No, I most definitely mean that it can actually answer Jeopardy questions. Formulating sentences oddly doesn't turn questions into answers and answers into questions. You could define "question" and "answer" as sentences with a certain syntax but that would be an extremely stupid definition.

by ugh 16y ago

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

It can simulate an intelligence answering Jeopardy questions.

ugh 16y ago
It actually answers questions, no trickery involved. It might not use the same algorithms humans use to answer those questions but that isn’t really that important, nobody ever claimed it does. I don’t see the simulation. I see a machine that is genuinely good at playing Jeopardy.

gjm11 16y ago

> Another task, previously only conquered by evolution I'm pretty sure that Jeopardy performance as such has not been strongly selected for among the ancestors of present day H. sapiens. (And the related things that may have been -- effective language use, good memory, etc. -- are not so obviously "conquered by algorithms written by humans" however well Watson does.)

ugh 16y ago
That sentence was written for its poetic impact, not its accuracy, I think it’s nevertheless somewhat defensible. Humans were obviously never selected for playing Jeopardy and evolution didn’t in that sense “conquer” Jeopardy (like dinosaurs “conquering” flying) but evolution nevertheless produced humans which are very good at playing Jeopardy. (We know of nothing else in this universe that can even only understand the rules of Jeopardy. Except for human-built machines.) That we can build a machine which is just as good as we are at playing the game obviously doesn’t mean that this machine is as intelligent as humans, it’s nevertheless quite impressive.

losvedir 16y ago

> It can actually answer Jeopardy questions. I think you mean, it can actually question Jeopardy answers. Sigh... I always hated that about the show.

ugh 16y ago
That sounds like a fun diversion! No, I most definitely mean that it can actually answer Jeopardy questions. Formulating sentences oddly doesn't turn questions into answers and answers into questions. You could define "question" and "answer" as sentences with a certain syntax but that would be an extremely stupid definition.