Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Watson A Game-Changer For Science

By Ben


Left to right: Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek; Ken Jennings, former Jeopardy! champion who in 2004 won a record 74 consecutive games; Watson, or rather his avatar; and Brad Rutter, another former Jeopardy! champion. 
Courtesy of Jeopardy Productions, Inc

20 comments:

Anthony said...

Wow! This was one of the most interesting articles I have every read. IBM is really smart to create Watson, and as they said Watson could also be used for other fields such as finance and medicine. He might also me a good professor even! It was really interesting how even against the top two Jeopardy players, Watson still won by 25,000 dollars! That is a lot of money! I also found it interesting how difficult it was for the programmers at IBM to make Watson. They used tons of algorithms; it seemed impossible! It was also interesting how they made a chess-player robot who also won. It would've been interesting to see a match of of him and Bobby Fisher. I really like Jeopardy, but sadly I did not get to watch it that night.

Sergio said...

Watson ability to analyze situations and come up with a good response seemed to good for a horrible television show. Shouldn't it be used for important things such as war. I wonder what would happen if they used Watson to play a game of chess against the other AI, Deep Blue. Making Watson must have been very expensive. They would have to win a lot of game shows to get back the money they put into making Watson. I can't believe it won by so much even though for some questions, he was less than 30% sure.

Nick said...

I remember reading about this a year ago. IBM has really stepped up the ante with Watson for AI. And to think, 20 years ago, Artificial Intelligence was still in the basics. This is a breakthrough in technology. I wonder how long it took to program it.

Chloe said...

This is so cool. A couple of years ago I heard about this on NPR. Watson played on Jeopardy against all of master. The funny thing was, he lost! I even watched it that night. In just two years they have advanced him so much. Congrats to IBM. Instead of " the ping-pong terminator" this could actually be very helpful in society. For medicine finance. It must of been a lot of hard work to make Watson.

Esther said...

I remember watching Jeopardy when Watson was on. I thought it was so cool! It's interesting to know how Watson works. It is incredible that he runs on 90 32-core servers. That is A LOT of powerful computing.

Emory said...

This is really cool. I think it is awesome that scientists have made a machine that can understand what it is searching. This is really leading to a world with computers to do everything for us. It's cool how the IBM can understand puns, riddles, and complex questions like a real person.

Emory said...

It is also cool that IBM can be a percent sure and that it missed a few problems. This shows that not everything can be perfect.

Samantha said...

Technology keeps marching forward. I can't believe that Watson could actually play chess and Jeopardy. It was fascinating how difficult this was to program, and how impressive. The patience and dedication it must take. However, I think that Watson should be used for more important things. The programmers could have programmed him so he could help with lets say, science or specifically medicine. .We need more scientists and programmers to work together to create these robots for more meaningful projects.

Emma said...

It is so amazing that these people created a robot that could understand human speech, and make sense of it. IBM must have put a lot of work into Watson. I think that it is really interesting that Watson can weigh the chances of being right or wrong so that it can decide whether to answer the question or not, and I am guessing that that is also what it did when it decided how much money it would wager for the Daily Double. I also think that it is amazing that Watson can look through many many textbooks, dictionaries, almanacs, etc., come to an answer, double check that answer, and, if it decides to buzz in, buzz in in less than three seconds. Watson is a big breakthrough in technology, but I agree with Samantha that they should use Watson for more important things. However the article said that they are in the process of programming Watson for medical use. This is really exciting, although it seems like one of those robot movies/books where the robots become too smart and end up taking over the world.

Ben said...

Thats crazy. However, it is kind of unfair for this robot to be playing against other people because it has so much info programmed into all of its servers. IBM really did a good job with this machine.

Max said...

It must have taken so long to build. I also think that Watson should be used for other things.

Amanda said...

I thought this was really cool for several reasons. First of all, I can't believe that Watson can understand human speech and like Emma said, to make sense of it. Like Chloe said also, I remember hearing about Watson on the radio, and he lost. It's also really good that he can be used for finance and medicine. It must have taken a really long time to make him even though it really isn't fair to have him compete against people.

Luca said...

WOW! This was very amazing of IBM to be able to do that, what if an Apple computer had that kind of power! But Watson isn't programmed to play chess, Deep Blue is.

Sergio said...

Yes, but Watson could learn the rules of chess and use the best moves but then, the chess game could go into an infinite loop. It would still be interesting.

Luca said...

Yes, but as of Watson hasn't been programmed for chess. However, that shouldn't be too hard. Did my HTML tags work?

Luca said...

As of now, I meant to say as of now.

Camille said...

This was really interesting. It WAS very smart to create Watson. I still can't believe Watson won by 25,000 dollars. Wow!

Luca said...

If you win at Jeopardy! do you actually get the money that is listed on your screen? If so then Watson might pay off the 32 core servers that were required to create him. But maybe he won't be allowed to compete in Jeopardy!. After all, he is a computer with thousands of Jeopardy! questions stored in his memory banks.

Sergio said...

Yes, he could pay for his own cost but that would take a very long time since just a single core servers costs a lot of money. I think that Watson shouldn't be allowed to compete in any game show. I'm surprised that he could go on jeopardy because I thought you had to be 18 years or older to go on most game shows.

Chloe said...

I have heard that Watson struggle the first time and he still lost. This time he crushed the Jeopardy masters! This could really advance technology.