IBM's Watson Gets a Swear Filter After Learning the Urban Dictionary

redletterdave writes "IBM's super-computer Watson briefly went from smart to smart ass with the help of the Urban Dictionary. According to Eric Brown, an IBM research assistant, he and his 35-person team wanted to get Watson to sound more like a real human. After teaching IBM's super-computer the entire Urban Dictionary, however, Watson simply couldn't distinguish polite discourse from profanity. Watson unfortunately learned all of the Urban Dictionary's bad habits, including throwing in overly-crass language at random points in its responses; in answering one question, Watson even reportedly used the word 'bullshit' within an answer to one researcher's question. In the end, Brown and his team were forced to remove the Urban Dictionary from Watson's vocabulary, and additionally developed a smart filter to keep Watson from swearing in the future."

Comments

Define the spec

[tool462]

Do you want it to talk like a real person, or do you want it to use a swear filter? Those are mutually exclusive.

Fuckers.

Re:Define the spec

[Anonymous Coward]

...or those who truly understand the power of those words and use them discretely for full effect, demonstrating full command of the language, not some socially "correct" or "polite" flavor of it.

Typical for a 2 year old

[OzTech]

Watson really is just simply amazing and a true testament to the brilliance of those who worked on it. In many ways, this proves just how close IBM are.

Watson really is just like a super-smart 2 year-old.
Welcome to parenting 101

The old computing adage is true

[toygeek]

Garbage in, Garbage out!

It's not a failure

[Indiana Joe]

It's definitely an unexpected result, though. I think they should have tried to teach Watson when not to use certain language.

Here's an opportunity for an experiment

[Anonymous Coward]

Create a twin copy of Watson. Let it read urban dictionary and maybe 4chan as much as it likes.
Compare it to the original Watson at regular intervals.

Bang, you get to see how internet affects a maturing mind.

Limited data set, flawed result

[vik]

If the idea is to make it understand and converse with real humans, teach it not to swear inapropriately.

If you can't figure out when it is apropriate or not, leave the fucking program to it.

Vik :v)

Re:TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life

[fredprado]

You are definitely evil.

Re:That's a fucking retarded idea.

[PopeRatzo]

Indiscriminately carpeting the place with cluster F-bombs [tvtropes.org] is a waste of perfectly good shock ammunition.

You're shocked by the word "fuck"?

In real life or just when you hear it on broadcast TV?

Seriously, no single word, by itself, should have the power to shock. Queen Victoria has been fucking dead for some time now, and it's time for the old cunt's rules to die with her.