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IBM Computer Program To Take On 'Jeopardy!'
longacre writes "I.B.M. plans to announce Monday that it is in the final stages of completing a computer program to compete against human 'Jeopardy!' contestants. If the program beats the humans, the field of artificial intelligence will have made a leap forward. ... The team is aiming not at a true thinking machine but at a new class of software that can 'understand' human questions and respond to them correctly. Such a program would have enormous economic implications. ... The proposed contest is an effort by I.B.M. to prove that its researchers can make significant technical progress by picking "grand challenges" like its early chess foray. The new bid is based on three years of work by a team that has grown to 20 experts in fields like natural language processing, machine learning and information retrieval. ... Under the rules of the match that the company has negotiated with the 'Jeopardy!' producers, the computer will not have to emulate all human qualities. It will receive questions as electronic text. The human contestants will both see the text of each question and hear it spoken by the show's host, Alex Trebek. ... Mr. Friedman added that they were also thinking about whom the human contestants should be and were considering inviting Ken Jennings, the 'Jeopardy!' contestant who won 74 consecutive times and collected $2.52 million in 2004."
Sources say the code-name for IBM's project is "Connery".
Trebek : This nobleman is believed to have written many of Shakespeare's works.
"Connery" : [pause] So that's your game, is it, Trebek? I was a coveted performer among the brothel ladies while you were still pissing your knee-pants, boy.
Trebek : Can one of the IBM people fix the computer?
"Connery" : Your mother's a whore. But don't feel badly, Trebek. She's not a very good one. Ha ha, ha ha!
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Anyone else hearing "I Lost on Jeopardy" in their heads at the moment?
FTA: The team is aiming not at a true thinking machine but at a new class of software that can 'understand' human questions and respond to them correctly.
I feel like someone should tell them how Jeopardy works... That thing isn't going to have too many questions to respond to.
Except at the "meet the contestant" part, maybe, which by the way should be fascinating.
Anyone else hearing "I Lost on Jeopardy" in their heads at the moment?
Now I am. Thanks for that. Jerk.
After years of trying to kill John Connors, Skynet realized its failure to achieve victory through brute strength and went back in time with a new objective: to win all human gameshows and use the prize money to buy off the entire planet instead.
Robot: This is place where your papers are.
Subjugated Human: What is my home?
Robot: That is the incorrect question. Please follow me to a "processing station".
In what way would this be a leap forward?
Well, at least a computer program will bother to RTFA.
Why employ real people when you can annoy the hell out of everyone who calls in by subjecting them to yet another tier of phone-bots.
Or reverse it:
1) Use on telemarketers that call you. ...
2) Record
3)
4) Profit