"Elementary, My Dear Watson"

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - 16:20 in Mathematics & Economics

OK, by now everyone's familiar with "Watson", the IBM Jeopardy machine with all the hype and drama associated with Artificial Intelligence and what it means for the future of humanity.  Is it HAL or Skynet?  Not by any definition. So what's the point?  At present, as a proof of concept, "Watson" has demonstrated that it is possible to use algorithms to produce some understanding of natural human speech.  I don't place much stock in "Watson" winning at Jeopardy since that seems as much a function of how quickly the buzzer can be pushed as it is in having an answer. read more

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