Posted on 12/13/2010 9:36:29 PM PST by Justaham
The game show "Jeopardy" will pit man versus machine this winter in a competition that will show how successful scientists are in creating a computer that can mimic human intelligence.
Two of the venerable game show's most successful champions — Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter — will play two games against "Watson," a computer program developed by IBM's artificial intelligence team. The matches will be spread over three days that will air Feb. 14-16, the game show said on Tuesday.
The competition is reminiscent of when IBM developed a chess-playing computer to compete against chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.
The "Jeopardy" answer-and-question format is a different kind of challenge. It often requires contestants to deal with subtleties, puns and riddles and come up with answers fast.
"Watson" is named for IBM founder Thomas J. Watson. It will look nothing like the computer "maid" on "The Jetsons." Rather, IBM said its on-screen appearance will be represented by a round avatar.
The computer has already been tested in some 50 games against past "Jeopardy" champions. But neither IBM nor "Jeopardy" representatives would say what "Watson's" record was.
The winner gets a $1 million prize. IBM said it would donate its winnings to charity, while Jennings and Rutter said they would give half of their prize money away.
Jennings had the game show's longest winning streak, taking 74 games in a row during the 2004-2005 season. Rutter has won more money than any other "Jeopardy" player, nearly $3.3 million during his original appearance and three subsequent tournaments.
IBM is hoping the technology it exhibits will have some practical uses eventually, for instance helping doctors diagnose illnesses or solving customer problems at technical support centers.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Dave’s not here.
Dave is everywhere, now.
Something *wonderful* happened.
;]
“It might sound like I’m slagging on Disney, but I’m really not. I’m sure the folks there consulted the best experts...”
Tron was released during Disney’s “malaise” era, the period from Walt’s death in 1966 to the arrival of Michael Eisner in 1984. Not a bright period in the company’s history.
“I think we are already observing that the productivity gains of the last few decades resulting in growing chronic unemployment”
Actually, I think welfare is a lot more responsible for chronic unemployment.
Agreed. Thing is I’ve created AI, spent countless hours researching it, delving into the intricacies of what AI actually entails. What it means to be intelligent.
At the most boiled down point I was able to reach I realized that there are things a computer can never truly attain.
[rewards and penalties], [likes and dislikes], [wants and needs].
Without these, even the most simplistic mind becomes impossible. You can program the brain of a 2 year old if you spend enough time putting all of that logic into a program, but how does that brain learn to, say, read? Why does it *care* to read? Does it feel success or failure based on how quickly it learns?
Nope, nor will it. It will always be fake and simplistic, limited by the creativity of the person creating it. We will never create a digital replication of “human” and certainly not “super human” because we’re more complex than we understand ourselves to be and are limited by our own understanding of what it means to *be* human. The best you will ever get is a semi-convincing replication of a given behavior, or set of behaviors.
I could probably create AI that would learn to read a book (by comparing its results to the known content), then learn to vocalize it to you (by comparing its output to the known content), but that’s all the AI would be able to do. It wouldn’t be able to tell you whether the book was good or not, it would just be able to read the book to you. And let’s not even talk about trying to get it to add emotion to the reading.
That’s great analysis. But on a gut-level response, it’s when they get really close to human mimicry that we start to feel ourselves slipping into “The Uncanny Valley.”
Right, whereas I’m sitting back thinking “why the hell did they feel the need to type out this many CASE statements”.
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