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Jeopardy-Playing Watson Computer System Could Revolutionize Research

5 points by solipsist 16y ago

emef 16y ago
> What Watson doesn't do is attempt to mimic the human ability to use common sense, make leaps of logic or imagine the future.... Pretty much sums up why I'm disillusioned about Watson and all the hype it's receiving. Don't get me wrong, it is a huge engineering feat, and pretty incredible, but doesn't seem as "revolutionary" as it's made out to be. Am I missing something?
- th0ma5 16y ago
  No, you're spot on. However, this sort of thing in the past (previously chess, the engine vs. a horse, etc) has sparked a wave of this kind of thing, which perhaps draws attention to automated logic reasoning in a way that is away from the traditional public tendency to lump all of those things (common sense, leaps of logic, imagination) in with automated reasoning. That could be beneficial, especially if we want to explore it as a tool. It is a stunt, but if anyone would be able to start these kinds of conversations, it would be IBM.
  - th0ma5 16y ago
    Just curious, was this not a constructive set of statements?
    - solipsist 16y ago
      No, I accidentally pressed the downvote on an iPad when viewing your comment. I had meant to upvote you. I've upvoted this other comment of yours, though, to make up for it. Sorry for the trouble.
      - th0ma5 16y ago
        I've certainly done that! RTs on twitter mobile web too.
- solipsist 16y ago
  "The AI crowd, too, was pleased with the result and the attention, but dismayed by the fact that Deep Blue was hardly what their predecessors had imagined decades earlier when they dreamed of creating a machine to defeat the world chess champion. Instead of a computer that thought and played chess like a human, with human creativity and intuition, they got one that played like a machine, systematically evaluating 200 million possible moves on the chess board per second and winning with brute number-crunching force." The Chess Master and the Computer by Garry Kasparov http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the-chess-master-and-the-computer/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the-che... What you describe is a very similar situation to that of the one IBM had after creating Deep Blue. They got the results that they had aimed for, but reached it by means that they hadn't expected (or even wanted). The implications of this are the effects it has on the potential applications and projects based off of it. Using brute force to solve these projects will not always work - at some point, this method will have to be replaced by another one. Instead of bringing computers closer to the human brain, these projects are revealing the large gap between them. In my opinion, the "Next Big Thing" should be a proper merge of the intelligence between computers and humans. Each has their own strengths, and trying to recreate and incorporate the complexities of the human brain into our computers may not be possible. Instead we should put the efforts into finding a way to connect the two and discovering a common interface between them.
- Pooter 16y ago
  No, I'm not sure what everyone's so excited about. Basically, they did a televised demo of a natural language search interface. I'd be curious to know more about how the system works, and how they trained it and/or curated the knowledge base it worked from. Maybe they'll write a more informative paper or something. But as it is, this wasn't a particularly surprising or impressive technology demo.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    But as it is, this wasn't a particularly surprising or impressive technology demo. I love these types of statements. Five years ago most experts in information retrieval would have said that this is nearly AI-Complete. And its hilarious that the same people who will say stuff like this (although maybe not you Pooter) will send me five emails about how incredible it is that the iPad is getting a front-facing camera. People don't seem to really have a clue as to what is actually difficult or interesting from a CS perspective.
    - Pooter 16y ago
      > People don't seem to really have a clue as to what is actually difficult or interesting from a CS perspective. Pardon me, but I do have a clue as to what's actually interesting and/or difficult from a CS perspective. I work in NLP research, and I'm actually familiar with other research systems being developed IBM, as well as other organizations. I wasn't particularly impressed or surprised.
catshirt 16y ago
"Jeopardy-Playing Watson Computer System Could Revolutionize Research" you don't say
radu_floricica 16y ago
A couple of comments: 1. Every completely new technology (and this is truly new) has lots of low hanging fruit to pick which are not obviously at first glance. Jeopardy was a test application and publicity source, but where the real-world applications are, we don't know yet. But it's a safe bet there'll be at least a couple of domains that will be completely revolutionized. 2. The great benefits of AI, like those of computing in general, aren't in AI-only applications. We won't have black box factories any time soon, just as we don't have black box financial systems or medical equipment. The benefits come _always_ from the synergy between human and machine. So the argument that Watson isn't a real AI doesn't hold water (true Scotsman anyone?). It's an awesome tool, with the potential to work with humans closer, better and on a larger scale then what we have now.

5 points by solipsist 16y ago

emef 16y ago

> What Watson doesn't do is attempt to mimic the human ability to use common sense, make leaps of logic or imagine the future.... Pretty much sums up why I'm disillusioned about Watson and all the hype it's receiving. Don't get me wrong, it is a huge engineering feat, and pretty incredible, but doesn't seem as "revolutionary" as it's made out to be. Am I missing something?

th0ma5 16y ago
No, you're spot on. However, this sort of thing in the past (previously chess, the engine vs. a horse, etc) has sparked a wave of this kind of thing, which perhaps draws attention to automated logic reasoning in a way that is away from the traditional public tendency to lump all of those things (common sense, leaps of logic, imagination) in with automated reasoning. That could be beneficial, especially if we want to explore it as a tool. It is a stunt, but if anyone would be able to start these kinds of conversations, it would be IBM.
- th0ma5 16y ago
  Just curious, was this not a constructive set of statements?
  - solipsist 16y ago
    No, I accidentally pressed the downvote on an iPad when viewing your comment. I had meant to upvote you. I've upvoted this other comment of yours, though, to make up for it. Sorry for the trouble.
    - th0ma5 16y ago
      I've certainly done that! RTs on twitter mobile web too.
solipsist 16y ago
"The AI crowd, too, was pleased with the result and the attention, but dismayed by the fact that Deep Blue was hardly what their predecessors had imagined decades earlier when they dreamed of creating a machine to defeat the world chess champion. Instead of a computer that thought and played chess like a human, with human creativity and intuition, they got one that played like a machine, systematically evaluating 200 million possible moves on the chess board per second and winning with brute number-crunching force." The Chess Master and the Computer by Garry Kasparov http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the-chess-master-and-the-computer/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the-che... What you describe is a very similar situation to that of the one IBM had after creating Deep Blue. They got the results that they had aimed for, but reached it by means that they hadn't expected (or even wanted). The implications of this are the effects it has on the potential applications and projects based off of it. Using brute force to solve these projects will not always work - at some point, this method will have to be replaced by another one. Instead of bringing computers closer to the human brain, these projects are revealing the large gap between them. In my opinion, the "Next Big Thing" should be a proper merge of the intelligence between computers and humans. Each has their own strengths, and trying to recreate and incorporate the complexities of the human brain into our computers may not be possible. Instead we should put the efforts into finding a way to connect the two and discovering a common interface between them.
Pooter 16y ago
No, I'm not sure what everyone's so excited about. Basically, they did a televised demo of a natural language search interface. I'd be curious to know more about how the system works, and how they trained it and/or curated the knowledge base it worked from. Maybe they'll write a more informative paper or something. But as it is, this wasn't a particularly surprising or impressive technology demo.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  But as it is, this wasn't a particularly surprising or impressive technology demo. I love these types of statements. Five years ago most experts in information retrieval would have said that this is nearly AI-Complete. And its hilarious that the same people who will say stuff like this (although maybe not you Pooter) will send me five emails about how incredible it is that the iPad is getting a front-facing camera. People don't seem to really have a clue as to what is actually difficult or interesting from a CS perspective.
  - Pooter 16y ago
    > People don't seem to really have a clue as to what is actually difficult or interesting from a CS perspective. Pardon me, but I do have a clue as to what's actually interesting and/or difficult from a CS perspective. I work in NLP research, and I'm actually familiar with other research systems being developed IBM, as well as other organizations. I wasn't particularly impressed or surprised.

catshirt 16y ago

"Jeopardy-Playing Watson Computer System Could Revolutionize Research" you don't say

radu_floricica 16y ago

A couple of comments: 1. Every completely new technology (and this is truly new) has lots of low hanging fruit to pick which are not obviously at first glance. Jeopardy was a test application and publicity source, but where the real-world applications are, we don't know yet. But it's a safe bet there'll be at least a couple of domains that will be completely revolutionized. 2. The great benefits of AI, like those of computing in general, aren't in AI-only applications. We won't have black box factories any time soon, just as we don't have black box financial systems or medical equipment. The benefits come _always_ from the synergy between human and machine. So the argument that Watson isn't a real AI doesn't hold water (true Scotsman anyone?). It's an awesome tool, with the potential to work with humans closer, better and on a larger scale then what we have now.