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IBM's Jeopardy Strategy
jfruhlinger writes "Developing a computer that could play chess once seemed like a worthy AI goal — but it turned out to be something of a dead end, as chess is very abstract and simple when compared to the real world. Will creating a game-show-playing computer lead to more interesting results? IBM hopes so, and its Watson machine will tackle problems in parallel processing, data searching, and natural language comprehension in an attempt to beat Jeopardy legends Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. " IBM announced the man vs. machine competition last month.
Once upon a time, a computer beating an expert at chess was amazing. Controversial.
Even if they pull this off (which does happen to be a huge feat of AI if you think about it) - the general public won't care anymore. They think computers can do everything already.
What is a possible new leap in interactive interfaces that would make a Bat-computer type UI possible?
The Penis Mightier for 200, Alex.
IBM should give it a Scottish accent; that way even if it fails, it will still be funny.
I'll take Patent Trolls for 100, Alex.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I'm not trolling or anything, I'm honestly really curious what the value in dumping all this money into R&D for this issue is? Will we really gain deep insights into AI that we don't already have by doing this?
Let chatbot authors compete too!
...now they are tackling a much more difficult game of Jeopardy. For fun and profit.
Hmm ... something doesn't seem to be right here ...
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
What is no?
I'll take "Idiot Politicians" for $200, Alex.
My blog
Nice move, there, I-beam.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Unlike winning at chess, which has little if any real world possibilities (except allowing solitary chase playing for the grand masters). Answering jeopardy style vague questions is at the heart of many help desk applications, searching, and even reception work. This is a real product/service that can be sold.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Compared to predicting the way the climate will change over the next 100 years. ... right?
And we already have systems that do that
And now we go to our Final Jeopardy category: "Famous Motherboards".
The hardest part of that is scoring and selecting the hits you get from the skein of database queries you make from the keywords in the clue.
If you want to do something impressive, make it learn what it knows the same way Jeopardy contestants did: by reading books and organizing the data within them in content-addressable memory.
*knock knock, door opens* "Yes?" "Who will give birth to the man who will lead the resistance against the machines after Judgement day ultimately overthrowing skynet and returning control of the planet to humans." "Umm, who is Sarah Connor?" *BLAM* "Why are you killing us?" "I'm sorry, please rephrase your statement in the form of an answer."
February Sweeps Gimmicks for 400, Alex
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Most of the time players find the daily double while running through categories they know REALLY well. Then they only bet ~$2k out of their $12k stash.
Even if they get the daily double right they will have to risk losing in final jeopardy b/c they haven't doubled the second place player's score. The smart play is to "make it a true daily double" and lap your opponents on a category you know well. Daily double questions are no harder than final jeopardy and I generally find them much easier. That's the time to risk it all. You not only increase your probability of winning but also your cash winnings.
Imagine you are up 80% on your opponent and the final jeopardy category comes up as something you know NOTHING about. That's the time when you wish you bet more on that daily double.
Question:
Computer: Buzz in immediately... wget/curl/expect google... and text to speech the results.
Human: scratch your head and bow down to your knew supercomputer overlord the Pentium III
you don't need to create a supercomputer for that... the web knows all... you can't beat it...
the fancy algorithm would just be turning the question into a google search that returns the best results, in case the question isn't the best search criteria
Watson: What's the difference between you and a mallard with a cold? One's a sick duck and I can't remember how it ends, but your mother's a whore.
Good people go to bed earlier.
A computer that competes on "Dancing With The Stars".
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Cleverbot buzzes in.
Trebek: Yes, Cleverbot.
Cleverbot: I'm not Cleverbot, you're Cleverbot.
Trebek: Yes... Well then, Janice?
Terrible, terrible idea.
I see the fnords!
Jennings: I'll take CAPTCHAs for 1000, Alex...
Big Blue: Damnit.
Depicting chess as a "dead end" is profoundly stupid. Of *course* chess is a dead end. It's a finite search space. There is a countable number of moves that chess players can make. That doesn't mean it's a waste of time to develop algorithms that perform well in that search space. The phrase "dead end" is loaded. You're a professional writer, and you know that, of course. Just because it makes good copy doesn't mean you should write it. You're not trying to sell papers, here: it's the Internet. Speak truth, even though almost everyone else is made of lies.
This is scarily relevant to this thread.
Who made a Goatse Bot that can't form words?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Self Potato
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
This is old news. I saw it in SciAm or something like that at least 4 months ago.
That "hardest part" is quite hard indeed. It implies huge advances in language processing, which, next to vision, is one of the "hard problems" in AI. Jeopardy answers involve trivia, yes, but many of them also take wordplay, puns, phonetics, analogies, non-sequiturs, etc. Jeopardy is not some cheesy show like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire; Google could win that one without trying hard... winning Jeopardy is going to require feats of AI that are leaps and bounds beyond anything else currently available.
Those Jeopardy contestants aren't good at what they do simply because they've read a lot of books. Computers can read way more than Ken Jennings ever could, and access it all much faster than he can. Google does this every day and we take that for granted. What makes a Jeopardy contestant good is the ability to pick patterns and make connections out of that information given a "search query" that makes little sense and only has the most tenuous connection to the needed result.
Personally, I believe the machine is going to get it's butt kicked... these guys aren't like the clowns they pick up for Celebrity Jeopardy and I don't expect the producers to be throwing a whole lot of DB-friendly softballs just to make IBM look good; I'm sure the Jeopardy folks get paid just fine by IBM either way.
Since IBM has retooled itself from a hardware/software company into an IT services company, I see a future where the nth-generation of their Jeopardy program mans the help desk, fielding technical questions and whatnot from IBM's very much "human" customers. If they could perfect this, then it could spell trouble to the millions of call center workers in India, the Philippines, or the emerging outsourcing powers in Africa.
Don't forget MommaBot!
MommaBot buzzes in.
Trebek: Yes, MommaBot?
MommaBot: Who is, YO' MOMMA!
Trebek: I'm sorry but that is the wrong answer *smack* Don'tchoo ever talk about my momma like that again!
MommaBot: Who is YO MOMMA!
*show erupts into chaos.*
Do they eliminate the buzzing in to claim the answer and have all players answer all questions? Because it would seem that the computer could always instantaneously buzz in and use the next few seconds to conjure up the answer, just as many humans do, save that 3-4 seconds of computational time can effect a pretty massive search / advantage. I would certainly run metrics on my program and figure out the optimal lead time to have it buzz prior to finding the answer. As has been noted, this is 75 percent marketing, and does not work well with the game format designed for humans.
"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserved their neutrality." -Dante
I'm reminded of the webcomic Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life. It's been a while since I reread the comic, but as I recall, what sparked the AI revolution was when scientists got bored with computers playing chess and the like and set about making a robot that could appreciate a theme restaurant.
http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/102110/neural-network-learning.gif