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IBM's Question-Answering System "Watson" Revisited

religious freak writes "IBM has created and made the question answering algorithm, Watson, available online. Watson has competed in and won a majority of (mock) matches against humans in Jeopardy. Watson does not connect to the Internet to answer his questions, but rather seeks answers using many different algorithms then employs a ranking algorithm to choose the best answer." We mentioned Watson last year as well.

3 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'll take Ken Jennings for the block... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Part of the deal with Jeopardy! is that they will have as part of the 2010-2011 season be a televised episode in which record-breaking champ Ken Jennings will play against Watson, with a to-be-named-later champion in the third slot. This has been in the works since 2009, but the staff of the show finally thinks the system is ready for it's televised match.

    One key factor is how the human behavior will change when prize money is at stake. Jennings has proven in numerous appearances on GSN that he's willing to play in any test of knowledge and the fact that he knew he was Jeopardy's first millionaire in regular season play didn't stop his long Jeopardy! run. He also studied for the show, particularly alcoholic beverages (which he doesn't drink) because he had seen the Potent Potables category on TV.

    But, what about that player-to-be-named later? Will they know more than the grad students... and play the game not as if it's for points but real dollars?

    niggers, coons and jigaboos, that's what.

  2. Re:Well, this is no good by MichaelSmith · · Score: 0, Troll

    By your definition I don't believe we are intelligent. Intelligence (and sentience) are made up to justify our treatment of entities we put in other categories. We used to treat black people the way we currently treat animals, and the justification was much the same.

  3. Re:I'll take Ken Jennings for the block... by Top4man · · Score: -1, Troll

    TOP4MAN – .