Monday, February 28, 2011

"Watson", Not the Sherlock Holmes' Assistant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(artificial_intelligence_software)

I am a fan of Jeopardy Game show, which is relayed on TV every afternoon between 3:30pm and 4:00pm Chicago time. It is a question and answer game show. Host is Alex Trebek, a Canadian American. Three contestants participate. Each question is associated with an amount of money. Whoever collects the most money at the end of the show is a winner and s/he gets to come again next day. There have been contestants who have won millions of dollars. They have also played the game for years.

Rules are; the questions are to be asked in answer form and answers have to be given in the question form. Topics can be anything under the sky; anything at all.

It is a generally held belief that the contestants are; one, highly  intelligent and  two, they are well read.  True. You have to be. But, if you watch the show carefully, many times the clue is built somewhere in the question itself. So, if one is good at spotting such clues, one can easily answer the questions. Even I have been able to anwer few questions.  Believe that!

Now, International Business Machine, IBM, has been working on a computer software, which they have named "WATSON" after their first CEO. This computer was to first participate in this Jeopardy games, so that its viability in other fields can be ascertained.  It was pitted against the past winners of the most money, which meant very intelligent contestants.

I watched this show. "WATSON" won. It was intelligent, yet only as intelligent as the data it was fed. Now IBM will sort out the kinks spotted during the show.  Eventually IBM wants to employ "WATSON" in many  industries including medical field.   

This week's Time magazine has a question- answer segment on "WATSON".  Few questions seem to impute human elements to "WATSON" which answerer has denied..........

Computers will do many things better than humans can but they will never be humans.....


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