Wednesday, September 26, 2012

IBM's Watson

Time to think:
Discover more about Watson, an artificial intelligence computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language.  Watson was named after IBM's first president, Thomas J. Watson.
In 2011, as a test of its abilities, Watson competed on the quiz show Jeopardy!, in the show's human-versus-machine match-up.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/01/14/computer-jeopardy.html


Share your thinking about Watson.
What are the implications?
What further questions to you have about Watson?
What surprised you the most about this story?
What new information did you find most fascinating?
What else can you find out about Watson to share with us in a post?

59 comments:

  1. If Watson is suppost to be a super computer then how is he effected by bugs?

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  2. I think watson is really cool but isn't that cheating?

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  3. I think watson is an enormus advance in artificsal intelligence but they really need to fix that glitch.

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  4. Did you know that watson can ring the buzzer in eight miliseconds

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  5. I think that it is cheating in jeopardy if you are using a super computer but i still think watson is really cool!

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  6. I think Watson is a great artificial intelligence computer system. I was really suprised about how Watson,Episodes February 14–16, beat Brad Rutter, the biggest all-time money winner on Jeopardy. It's surprising how a computer can be programed to do such things.

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  7. oh dear whatson wasn't working well in the 2nd video.

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  8. Don't make the mistake of making comuters smarter than humans or the computers will take over!

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  9. Apple vs. IBM Watson
    Watson is apparently being developed for mobile phones: in much the same manner as Siri works in fact. Most of the intensive computation is done elsewhere, at the server farm. So in basic structure they’re rather similar.They’re also quite different in their current incarnations and development paths. The aim seems to be for Watson to become an/the expert in a particular field. While Siri remains very much a generalist. Watson gets taught the intricacies of specific subjects, Siri, apart from a little programming of answers, tends to simply interrogate other search engines and databases

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    1. Sorry to disturb you Mr.Holmes but I would like to ask you what is the similarity in between Cognos and Watson . By the way IBM is better than Apple and Microsoft combined . My dad works at IBM.

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  10. i think it will really help the human tecnology and i hope they make a homeworkbot

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  11. THAT IS SOOOOOOO COOL!!! Oh my, that is the new computer reavolution. did you know that in the game of jeopardy the watson comuter's best catagory was female archeologists when he wizzed through the round buzzing in before either of the other two contestants.

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  12. I think it is amazing creating an actual robot which overcomes the intelligence of the human race. The winners of the game show and the chess champion are probably amazingly smart or good at those certain things. The computers database is smarter than the averege human.

    V.F

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  13. Watson took 4 years to make and they still haven't perfected it, that show how complexe Watson really is!

    I wonder if when they perfect it if they will intigrate it into work servers or desktop computers. THAT WOULD BE SOO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  14. I like watching him play jeopardy because he is smart because of his AI

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  15. Watson is nothing compared to the human brain, even though he sometimes crashes. He wins Jepordy almost every time and if you look at the scores he wins by about 20,000 points! Its amazing how advanced thecnolgy is now.

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  16. Watson took 4 years to make and they still haven't perfected it, that show how complexe Watson really is!

    I wonder if when they perfect it if they will intigrate it into work servers or desktop computers. THAT WOULD BE SOO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  17. I was surprised at the beginning of the JEOPARDY! only video,because at first he was beating some of the best JEOPARDY! players in the world, at first.
    But just like in Room 210, our technology sometimes starts out great....then goes wonky. So its nice to know that a supercomputar like Watson glitches, too.

    Also, in the first video, he said that the computars were not yet advanced enough to answer human commands directly. That made me think, because I thought of Siri, which generally DOES answer commands directly. But then I checked the date on the video, and it was January 14,2011, so early 2011.And Siri was first released on the 4S,which was in October 2011.

    All together, very interesting videos. :)

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  18. DP: I watch jeopardy every night, Watson works by using the internet for the questions asked and it sees the results of how many people would think of hat person e.g what year is it, almost all people would say 2012 but some people would say 2011 so watson would ake the mjoriy and use it as his answer. at least that's what I know from schema, not from the videos. AG:i think he inventors can get rich off watson by entering him in every jepordy.
    :D and i wonder when (and if) watson win jepordy where does the money go??
    im also wondering if there going to add more features to watson :)

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  19. I remember watching deep blue on Jeoprady it won. I think Watson is pretty smart, But he seemed to mess up a lot. I think that we should hire apple to make a better system IBM always fails!!!!!!!!

    a.m e.c

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  20. Watson is now holding the all time record for winning jeperdy , people still try to beat him . Also Watson is the only robot up to date that can win in a human robot battle!IBM is still trying edit Watson so he can anwser more questoins and not over heat as often(even though that doesn't happen often)

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  21. This changed human technology. I would like to know exactly who came up with the computer system watson. Computers have come so far. They are like people now! A.P

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  22. I think Watson is really awesome. The power the computer must have to process the information is unbelieavable and shocking, I remember hearing about a computer being the best chess player and I was really scared about it because people kept freaking out saying the robot revolution has begun.
    I really wonder what the next IBM challenge will be!
    It was really funny when he glitched and started asking what milk was. I still wonder why he started messing up so bad.
    I am really interested and wish to learn more!

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  23. I suggest that you make different main disks for Watson so when one crashes you just take it out, place in another one and keep going along with it instead of waiting for the disk to cool down. I would like to know if the imformation was downloaded to Watson or if it was just connected to the computer and worked at high speed.I was surprised on how a robot actually beat the worlds greatest chess plyer. This means the soon robots will be taking over jobs that people usually have.In Jeopardy! human players can answer short clues faster then Watson. However, humans take tenths of a second to ring their buzzer as they are allowed to buzz at the light. Watson is told by a little system inside so it can buzz within eight milliseconds.

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  24. One of the most interesting Watson "capabilities" (and one of the challenges for the IBM team) is that it understands questions in "natural language".

    Computers are very good processing structured information (eg. formulas, numbers) but to compete in Jeopardy, the IBM Team had to figure out how to develop a system that could decipher questions in "plain English"

    Apple's Siri is also an example of unstructured question interaction with a Computer.

    C.

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    1. You raise an excellent point about "plain English". Do you think machines will ever really decipher the nuances and colloquialisms of everyday language? Language evolves and changes so rapidly, it would be difficult to keep up.
      I would like to find out about Apple's Siri.

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    2. Hard to say, I guess everything is possible.

      But, if you had the opportunity to travel back in time -- lets say 30 years-- and show someone an iPhone and let Siri answer a basic question, what would that person think about what machines could do?

      In the same way, what will be out there in 10 years?

      :-)

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  25. Isn't it funny how we all keep referring to Watson as "he"?
    I wonder why??? He's a machine afterall ... isn't it?

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    1. I'm not sure, but I think unless your referring to a vechile, (eg.boat,plane,car) you generally call 'things' hes. Its easier that way. Not sure though. ;)

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  26. Did you notice the types of questions that were most challenging for Watson?

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  27. I never heard about Watson before this post. It is amazing how he was able to create some thing that complex since it took 4 years to create. I have a few questions for the manager of Watson: How have you foreseen the questions on Jepardy!? And what questions were most challenging? I have learned that :Watson is an artificial intelligence computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, The sources of information for Watson include encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, newswire articles, and literary works. Watson also used databases, taxonomies, and ontologies. Specifically, DBPedia, WordNet, and Yago were used, The first round was broadcast February 14, 2011. The right to choose the first category had been determined by a draw won by Rutter.[45] Watson, represented by a computer monitor display and artificial voice, responded correctly to the second clue and then selected the fourth clue of the first category.

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    1. I like all the detail and effort you put into making that comment. I think your thoughts are great!

      G:emini01

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  28. Watson is a luminated loading artificial intelligence with glitches along the way

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  29. It's not created by Steve Jobs and sometimes it glitches or freezes, but Watson is an elctronic miracle!

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  30. "come with me if you want to live"

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  31. watson is an extremely smart robot but he shouln't be allowed to play jeopardy because he can look all the answers up and get rich

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  32. Watson read the compiled 0's and 1's and spat them into the system reading and understanding them. Shoving them into his database and storing them for later purposes. He then searched for the answer using his highly advanced search system complete with it's arsenal of computers and technical gizmos. Then getting his answer from the answers of the light speed google search and then set it into his speaker who pressed the buzzer with the mechanical hand and blurted out the perfectly correct answer. He then blurted a line that was different "The robot revolution has begun!" And it has...

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  33. Watson used the tools of pixelation and beeps to portray his answer, luckily he is not the smartest robot on the block so we have to watch out for Siri for she can take over the world with her pure awesomeness (and being made by apple), smashing Watson into the GROUND

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  34. watson is a human like machine that can answer quuestions

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  35. Watson is an intellegant machine that can out smart a human

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  36. Watson is a computer that thinks like a person. Watson is a machine that googles, pixelates, and animates like a person. A collection of pixels that makes up the human brain.A.P

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  37. Watson is a super computer that is awesome on jeopardy but sometimes freezes but when it works, it is speeding fast

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  38. A few years back Watson won 1 million dolars against the top 2 Jeopardy! champions

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  39. IBm's Watson is an extrordinary, buzzing humming, computing, electronic, flashey feat of engineering genius.

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  40. watson is a really cool awesome computer version of Einstein who was made to win jeporody games but I think it could do much much more.

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  41. Watson(a.k.a, a big pile of nuts and bolts thet resembles your dad usually) is a highly intelligent super computer that plays Jeopardy! It also glitches and crashes alot.

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  42. Watson is a artifical intelligence program that IBM created in order to win a game of Jeoperdy.

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  43. Watson is a small,heartless,box shaped, metal version of Albert Einstein.
    Publish | Delete | Spam Crazykat at 7:03 AM

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  44. Watson, the computer animated machine sometimes is a whirring, beeping buzzing machine that works but other times it's a glitching, malfuntioning machine that does not work.

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  45. Great discussion here. I am Michael Holmes, program director of IBM Watson Solutions. In response to the several comments made about Watson on handheld and what's next for Watson.... Watson is ushering in a new era of computing called cognitive systems. The possibilities of how and where Watson will be applied in the future is vast and exciting. In this spirit a series of stories (e.g. Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, etc.) recently appeared discussing Watson 2.0. This research led perspective touched on a number of key areas including voice activation and smart-phone applications. These are but a few of the notable ways we can extend IBM Watson’s capabilities. These stories were intended to stir the imagination and not as a representation of upcoming features. The next iterations of Watson Advisory Solutions will reflect early learning’s from the work being done in Healthcare and Financial Services.

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    1. Thank you for leaving your comment. Our class was really surprised and excited when our teacher told us that the Director of IBM Watson Solutions commented on our blog. I would really like to find out more about Watson. I find it very interesting that you are now using the abilities of Watson to help assist in Healthcare. I also like how you came up with the name for Watson. Please keep in touch!

      G:emini01

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  46. Hello, Mr. Holmes, this is Ashley, a grade 5 student from the class which created this blog. I was really stunned by your comment! Being the director of IBM solutions, I was wondering if you could answer some questions for me:
    Why did IBM make Watson?
    What else is Watson meant to do besides Jeopardy.
    Why does it have a British accent?
    Thanks,
    Ashley

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  47. Imagine our excitement to see a comment from Mr. Michael Holmes on our blog this morning! It made us more curious to know about cognitive systems and their applications in the real world. We are also interested in learning exactly how Watson technology assists in the medical field and its use in the world of finance and business.
    Being grade 5 and 6 students, the children are interested to know if there is research in the area of the development of educational tools which could be practically and economically brought into classrooms. In our class, we are working to phase out textbooks and to lessen the amount of paper and pencil assignments. We often experience the inevitable glitches and frustrations with our current technology, but we continue to persevere and strive to learn something new about ourselves or the world around us everyday.

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  48. Watson is the most amazing robot I have ever seen he can do more than the average human,so I wonder how he learned how to be a doctor, finance advise,and a bunch of other things? And how does he remember how to do it all?

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  49. I’d be excited to have my own sort of pocket Watson to ask and explore through. Like Siri on steroids. Well described.

    Exactly when do you expect that a pocket Watson will come out on the market and will it be for normal people or just for industrial and medical purposes. How exactly Watson diagnose diseases?

    How many people do you have working on Watson? They must know quite a lot of stuff. How long do you think it will take to make Watson bug proof?

    Watson has a lot of talent. It can be a doctor ,a game show competitor,and a business machine! But if it has that much knowledge in its hard drive, how come it doesn’t have other uses too?

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  50. For all I know artifficial intelligence is based on finding and analyzing in-visible and visible connections of knowledge/experience in different fields/aspects of life. The human brain functions in a similar way. A brain of a child first gathers information from his/her mother, teacher, etc. and then starts analyzing and producing ideas. But along with the knowledge the child's brain is also getting emotions and senses. My question is how you can teach the supercomputer to grasp emotions and use them along with the knowledge to produce results.

    I have also wanted to learn more about people who work at IBM and create such things as Watson, so I was thinking if there is any class we could organize or some kind of lesson or field trip to IBM Canada for our learning?
    V.F.

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  51. I remember this!way back in grade 6. I think i still have this project in my room.

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