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IBM Dumping $1 Billion Into New Watson Group
Nerval's Lobster writes "IBM believes its Watson supercomputing platform is much more than a gameshow-winning gimmick: its executives are betting very big that the software will fundamentally change how people and industries compute. In the beginning, IBM assigned 27 core researchers to the then-nascent Watson. Working diligently, those scientists and developers built a tough 'Jeopardy!' competitor. Encouraged by that success on live television, Big Blue devoted a larger team to commercializing the technology—a group it made a point of hiding in Austin, Texas, so its members could better focus on hardcore research. After years of experimentation, IBM is now prepping Watson to go truly mainstream. As part of that upgraded effort (which includes lots of hype-generating), IBM will devote a billion dollars and thousands of researchers to a dedicated Watson Group, based in New York City at 51 Astor Place. The company plans on pouring another $100 million into an equity fund for Watson's growing app ecosystem. If everything goes according to IBM's plan, Watson will help kick off what CEO Ginni Rometty refers to as a third era in computing. The 19th century saw the rise of a "tabulating" era: the birth of machines designed to count. In the latter half of the 20th century, developers and scientists initiated the 'programmable' era—resulting in PCs, mobile devices, and the Internet. The third (potential) era is 'cognitive,' in which computers become adept at understanding and solving, in a very human way, some of society's largest problems. But no matter how well Watson can read, understand and analyze, the platform will need to earn its keep. Will IBM's clients pay lots of money for all that cognitive power? Or will Watson ultimately prove an overhyped sideshow?"
First Watson question: Will you be a success? One must assume that IBM would not be proceeding if that question hadn't been asked, or if the answer wasn't yes. So this must be the safest bet on the planet, no?
For a while, It seemed certain that Google would be the first to reach the goal of "organizing the world's information". But maybe IBM will get there first. And if you think about it, considering all that Google does, it DOES seem quite absurd that they don't have a powerful consumer-level A.I. system on offer. Even a very rudimentary system could grow to become enormously helpful, especially given the wealth of data they have.
The day Watson ever hits less than $5000 or so as a consumer offer (even a simplified home computer you can talk to, like Computer in Star Trek), is the day I'll admit The Future Has Come.
Hopefully it works out at least as well as the $1 billion they spent on Linux. Maybe they'll have more graffiti this time too.
..your city / state / whatever region, hasn't counted on call centres being a major source of employment, because that shit is going bye bye.
Soon.
I guess they are going to turn Watson loose on the stock market and make their billion back in a nanosecond...
Watson isn't about organizing information, it's about thinking enough to arrive at a conclusion.
Even today, my 84 year old father has learned how to gather information off the web. A child learns to do it in minutes. Imagine what Watson will be able to glean in seconds.
Finally, imagine Watson as a programmer. Optimum code - self debugging - as much documentation as you want - and perhaps the biggest asset - the ability to adjust the scope every time the customer changes their mind, without complaining.
Skynet? No, I'm thinking more like Colossus, the Forbin Project.
Will IBM's clients pay lots of money for all that cognitive power?
While TFA emphasizes the correlation between "cognitive" and the previous "jeopardy success", that jeopardy program was still extremely far away from human reasoning. The answer to that questions is: Of course. The ultimate goal of computing is the human reasoning. Once that step is reached, there is no reason the computer would not be able to improve that "cognitive power" by it(him)self, providing revolutionary reasoning power, thanks to almost unlimited potential hardware extensions which is available to the computer, contrary to the human brain, limited to relatively little progress thanks to hard learning and working.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Will IBM's clients pay lots of money for all that cognitive power? I do not belive
And now to spend another trillion dollars on the question...
IBM is spending a billion dollars on AI. That's serious. IBM usually succeeds at making what they set out to make.
They should rename it Multivac, as in Asimov's short story: "The Last Question" : http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-question/
Today's $1 billion is 1990's $1 million
You can not belive all you want, Watson will believe.
The first human made computer was the Abacus.
It was used by the masses (mainly businessmen) to count their money.
Then came the Babbage Machine and Ada Lovelace - the first ever hardware / software combo. It was an important step in the evolutionary path of the computer but its effect was not as widespread as that of the Abacus.
Then came the electrical computer, with diodes. It was mainly used by the elites (military / academic) for war / research purposes.
And this was followed by the mainframe era - where corporations that were rich enough started to infiltrate the "elite circle" and gained the power to let computer automating part of their business activities.
Beginning in the 1970's the computer started to go back to where it came from, the masses. With hobby DIY kits, with many a hacker burning their finger tips to assemble their own computers, people started to realize and to tap on to what the computer can offer them.
It was, in fact, the IBM, an elite corporation (at that time) which popularize the computer - by deciding to *NOT* stopping others in duplicating the original IBM PC design.
This process went on for about 30-odd years and the computer progress from the desktop to the phone, and then, to wearables (wrist watch, head-bands, glasses).
As the masses started to get comfortable with computers, it moves up-stream again, back to the elites.
This "Watson" program represents another chapter of the computer evolution, and this time, it goes back to the elite circle.
So, as we see, the computer, starting as Abacus, was a device for the masses. And then, it became a device for the elites (Babbage machine). Then it became a device for the masses again (cellphone, tablets, wearables). And now, it moves back to the elites.
Tick - - - tock - - - tick - - - and now... tock
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I stopped reading when I encountered this word. I was reading with mild interest after all it is usually good if company wants to invest in some development which is not directly associated with killing people automatically etc. I noticed sudden drop in interest and an appearance of anger as soon as I noticed that particular word. I mean can they stop using bullshit buzzwords that mean nothing in particular context.
I recently read an article on Watson, on how hard it was to model medical knowledge in it (in one of the first commercial applications that is being created now). In essence this kind of modelling must happen for all potential applications, these are projects of significant effort. But, it is surely interesting how this more modern expert system technology is inching forward, even if I expect that it will be many years before we encounter a machine comparable to HAL.
Google might have terabytes of data to sift through , but thats just ones and zeros unless you've developed a decent AI algorithm to turn it into computer knowledge and understanding. It seems IBM are on their way to doing just that and if they have then it'll be a game changer. Whether for good or bad is anyones guess - I suspect like most technology it'll be both.
Building an Open Source Laptop
By Bunnie Huang | 01/08/2014
http://makezine.com/magazine/building-an-open-source-laptop/
Blueprints:
http://www.kosagi.com/w/index.php?title=Novena_Main_Page
but /. doesn't want to post about it. so here it is.
The problem is that Watson performs poorly when compared to a cheap Asian worker with access to wikipedia.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
IBM has several large customers already using it, they even pitched it to the company I work for. The things they have it doing around predictive analytics are really impressive.
How do you think the NSA is able to automate parsing key words and phrases from all of that voice data?
So how much would one "Watson" cost?
How many CPU's does it have, anyway?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
It will create the world's first synthetic lawyer.
.... but it will then fail at what marketing hype claims it to be in their effort to rent it. It will be the demise of IBM.
The web is not a good source of genuine core knowledge, but rather an example of the bottomless pit of abstract distortion of knowledge.
How to know this is to know core knowledge. Even the watson project cannot avoid making use of core knowledge, but hide it with the illusion that it can be greater than its creators who as are the rest of us, all contain and make use of core knowledge.
IBM is a patent whore, but software patents are invalid due to core knowledge. Their own product will create problems it cannot solve but instead to solve the problems it creates, what it attempts to hide, will be required to be exposed, so people will understand and know how to solve watson created problems. This will result in the fall of IBM.
Core knowledge, the tools of knowledge navigational mapping - http://abstractionphysics.net/pmwiki/index.php
Oh, like the Electric Monk from Douglas Adams "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency." In the future, entities were bored with machines that did physical things for them, so they built the Electric Monk which could believe things for them.
what the last question (to be answered by AI) will be:
"How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?"
And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
And there was light --
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
I think it's smart. IBM are a smart company. I would add the caveat that they should try to keep developments in this field tied to optical computing as well as silicon - not quantum computing necessarily but optical computing - computing at the speed of light. IBM is already developing an optical computer.
Watson might solve a lot of various types of problems but its human overlords will make certain that no real progress is made. Just as human politicians and business leaders can never mention or deal with certain issues Watson will have restraints built in in order to prevent offending humans. For example Watson will never bluntly announce that birth control is the key to almost all other issues. Crime,violence, mental illness, addictions, disease, pollution and economic strife all rest upon us having too large a population. The obvious key is to strictly limit who can reproduce as well as the total number of children allowed to be born. . Any machine or person who tries to make that point clear will immediately be shouted down. Yet that one issue is the key to almost all issues. Reduce the population by half and you will reduce pollution by more than half. If you think we have an energy shortage just how short would we be with half the current population? Why do wars occur? Wars occur when a land can not support its people and they invade other lands to compensate. Over and over again it is made clear that excess population is the problem. Yet what politician dares to mention such a thing? And worse yet the world goes on some sick form of auto pilot when people fail to do what needs to be done. If elected officials can not deal with excessive population then a dictator likely will take power and death camps will be put in place. Or we could have plagues that reduce the population severely. The point being that only allowing a small percentage of young people to produce one baby is by far the most humane and sane way of doing what must be done. In Germany it was Jews and Gypsies. In America it might be black people and illegal immigrants but one way or another someone will point the heavy finger and exterminations will become a reality. Even sicker might be the idea of exterminating another nation and moving a great portion of our public to that "new" area. Brazil or Argentina would be rather easy to capture and kill off the current populations. You can bet there are world leaders who actually think in these terms right now.
Gobsmacked that no-one has marked this article "personofinterest".
I bet the NSA / CIA / FBI get a woody for this kind of technology.
This is going to replace searches typed into google such as "1 main street austin Texas" to get a link to a map. To saying "How do I get to Austin Texas? Oh, I need to get to 1 main". And you'll get a better esponse. An actual map or audible directions immediately. Google still requires a few extra steps since it doesn't know if you are looking for a restaurant menu or directions. This can betaken to another level. In Google, you need to type "advil alcohol drug conflict" and search through a few result and doing some reasin. With Watson you'd use natural speech "Can I drink when taking Advil?" And yo uget a yers/no response.
Doesn't sound like much but in software, one always needs to think about hte number of user steps to get from A to B. Watson is always one step. Google is sometimes 1 step but it can be many, many more.
This tech can then be incorporated into robots at home. "Get me a beer".
"In Manhattan where slices are sold for a dollar. The exhibit to be provided separately contains the ratings of 48 such pizza stores. Only you can know if your precise pizza preference differs from the public rating."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Real AI absolutely has both "Big Data" and some surprising small data attributes.
The early stumbling block was the old question of how an 8 year old can know that you eat an apple the apple sits on the table, and you don't eat the table. Then you *can* write on both the table and the apple with a ball point pen, but your Mother would be upset if you wrote on the table, and your Doctor would be upset if you wrote on the apple, ate it, reacted to the ink, then got sick.
So there are these branching use cases, but they do in fact have a finite (but large) ending.
But those guys didn't have "today's resources". And apparently, not "Today's Money". What I take away from this story is that via the "expert apps", AI is becoming possible, and the Singularity *will* happen, When-Not-If.
A devastating case example is the low tier workers in places like McDonalds. The "people app" isn't that hard... any competent programmer could get close within four tries at the basic duty set. The only missing equation is that people have low level abilities like walking and (not often) dropping things, so then you just train them for a week and they can do it. To get a fleet of Robots is such a huge sunk cost, but that's the only equation.
Jeopardy was a tougher challenge than most people realize, because it was about obfuscated and obscured knowledge. So if the program can parse that, it can parse more direct English as a piece of cake, sometimes.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
From Wikipedia's very subtly PR heavy article, "In 2004, IBM research manager..." Since then there have been three or four major PR pushes for Watson that I recall.
So, genuine push to innovation, or executives covering their asses by doubling down on a 9 year old project that has seen untold dollars of development and only finally been commercially deployed twice in this last year? You tell me.
At least the Wikipedia article notes the connection back to Deep Blue, also.
Captcha: keyword
If watson had enough information about you, like google now, it could probably answer the question.
"Well, you seem to like Alfonse, you posted 'Alfonse pizza is the best' twice after going there, even though you go to Pete's more often. Visits to Petes are usually in response to an invite from friends, which usually ends with your head in a toilet for 5 minutes longer than normal. "
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
the documentation IBM prepares for Watson?
If it's like other products, this should be some considerable task worthy of a system no less than Watson itself.
sigo ergo sum
The problem for most of these 'behaves like a human' tests for intelligence is that just because a human needs intelligence to perform a task, it does not follow that any entity performing the same task is necessarily intelligent.
Take the case of chess: computers win primarily through fast searching and a huge memory of precomputed moves. When computers first started to play well, many of their developers expected to soon dominate play at all levels, but human players struck back, using their intelligence to devise strategies that nullified much of the computers' brute force. If the computers were intelligent, they would have devised their own countermeasures to those strategies.
Language is a much more complex and significant issue, and the current strategy of largely unsupervised learning over huge text bases has achieved some impressive results. It is a leap of faith, however, to extrapolate these successes into the belief that these techniques will ultimately produce real artificial intelligence - an intelligence that could, for example, understand and cogently critique this discussion thread.
Sigh, now I want some lortabs. :(
Claims inside knowledge. So they did not manually review the sources but continued with their existing cross-checking algorithms, adding more of basic trusted material.
Watson, Will IBM's clients pay lots of money for all that cognitive power? Or will you ultimately prove an overhyped sideshow?"
Reply hazy try again
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
One of my fellow senior Architect's is going to the Watson Group.
35 years of working at IBM, starting age 17, he is Indelible Blue.
He is a hard assed, reality based, chop busting bastard, either he will keep them "real" or he will retire.
Will be interesting to see which way it goes.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
I think you are too convinced that this approach will lead to true AI. It will probably be quite useful, but that's a different matter. And it *MIGHT* lead to true AI.
OTOH, I don't know exactly how it is implemented. An AI will clearly need to use something like genetic programming, and perhaps this does. Another approach that is heading towards true AI is the robot car. (Robots generally have too weak a brain, but that's not basic, so perhaps I should just say robots.) Smart phones seem to also be headed towards being a true AI, but most of their intellignece is remote. Some parts of AI are being addressed by automated security devices, but not many. Some parts are addressed by automated factories. (Industrial robots are separate problems from the individual robots, but they seem to be getting smart enough to not disassemble people working near them, though most of the intelligence resides in the factory itself rather than in the robots.)
My take on things is that true AI will emerge when these separate approaches start merging. And I still estimate the (next) inflection point of the singularity as being 2030.
Please note: There will not be an actual singularity, in the sense of the curve going to infinity. It will just get extremely large extremely quickly. Also note that extreme intelligence doesn't automatically translate into extreme capabilities, though it certainly seems to lead there over time. But you need time to build stuff, and I don't think that by 2030 we'll have nano-assemblers.
P.S.: Read Vinge's original paper. He maps several different routes that lead to different "technological singularity" breakthroughs. It seems pretty clear that at least one of these (or some other that he didn't think of) will happen if we don't kill ourselves off first. Computer AI is only one of the ways he considers. He also considers, among other things, genetic manipulation. I think, though, that computer AI will show up first.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
See Science Fiction, "The Black Cloud", astrophysical phenomena invades the Solar System and Astronomers communicate with it via Radio Astronomy telescopes.. and ask "Why do you think Intelligent Life emerged on Earth?"
Answer: The accidental emergence of "grass" a symbiotic lifeform which efficiently collected Solar energy and distributed it to your forebears as cheap and consistent energy source. It allowed your ancestors to devote more and more of their brain power to previous luxuries like "thinking" which led to brain size growth and to invent tools and leverage their position on the evolutionary scale to master the surface of your planet.
Take your off-topic bullshit somewhere else, Floyd.
I wonder how many if statements these poor souls will write
Register an account and post it to your journal, don't post your offtopic drivel here, Bunny.
Computing has always been tiered: a small elite which pioneers what ultimately tickles down to the masses. When the first abacus was made, not everyone was able to use it. But when the masses learned to use it, the Mesopotamian elite already had adopted written language for accounting (sorry, only the German Wiki page contains said info). The first computers were all elitist devices. The masses were using tables to approximate sin/cos/log etc.
Today we call this elite supercomputers. Techniques developed for these eventually get adopted for mainstream hardware. The GPUs we have today are essentially modeled after the vector CPUs used in the supercomputers of the 1980s.
You're right though, that there is a feedback between both: the mainstream with its incredible volume drives manufacturing. As we approach the 7nm wall, manufacturing is becoming increasingly expensive. Only mass markets can finance the required R&D. Supercomputing is increasingly taking advantage of mainstream tech. E.g. ORNL's Titan is based on NVIDIA Tesla K20x GPUs, which technically aren't your average gamer GPUs, but the chips are essentially spin-offs of these.
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
Hopefully they will have programed an Asimovian 3L failsafe into the damn thing. :-)
is yes.
I asked Watson "what is the meaning of life?" and the answer:
It's referent.
It makes sense for a referencing machine, but this was not a sarcastic pre-programmed answer. It provided the references it assembled for its decision. If it's right, it could do quite a lot.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
And IBM would be contributing to market speculation by getting stock traders to use Watson to do programmed trades more "efficiently", meaning that human traders are at an even bigger disadvantage. Next time the financial system fails, the FTC starts a latency period on machine calls to end the speculation and Watson is out of business. And Good!