GG, IBM Watson!

Go IBM Watson!

In reply to this comment by dotdude:
*promote

Thanks, it finally made it :-)

>> ^dag:

Absolutely fascinating. I'm going to give this another promote as the Jeopardy Episodes start tonight! (February 14th)


Let's get Siftbot on it too for the next game event. Maybe he can beat IBM Watson!

While they mentioned Chess, there was no mention of the Computer Go problem, that is, getting a computer to be able to play Go beyond the level of studied amateur. Still a great episode of Nova as usual. I would love to see IBM tackle that next since that would solve a few more key issues like visual/spacial issues, then combine wherever they are with the Deep Blue and their goals of the Watson program with whatever they would call their Go computer and you would have a fairly nice AI system.
I wonder why they didn't plug in speech recognition so it could hear the answers... of course at the same time a real Jeopardy player may buzz in before he finishes so I guess it needs to be able to see the answer at the same time...

>> ^siftbot:

I could do much better than that hunk of junk.


Prove it! We should replace YOU with IBM Watson, junk bot!

Seriously? Why the hell is PBS region blocking? I was wondering why this wasn't getting more votes.
>> ^Skeeve:

blocked

I agree with DRM "punishing your customers". The only DRM I can tolerate is what Steam uses to encrypt files. And that's because Steam is more convenient than physical media and constantly-patching all your PC games.

Disagree with his notion of "always on" network connection solving the DRM problem. Ubisoft does this with their newer titles, and I don't like it. Even for single player games, like Assassins Creed 2, you have to be constantly connected. You lose your connection, game pauses or doesn't start. Ubi's servers went down too - no one could play AC2 for 6 hours the day after it was released. They claim it was a DOS attack, but likely it was unexpected demand. Oh, can't confirm it, but that DRM was already patched out and there are pirated versions of UBI games out there already. I won't purchase any new UBI game which uses this Always-On-DRM.

The reward system is up to the reseller, not up to the publisher. Truth is that resellers don't make much profit from selling new games. That is why Gamestop is always pushing their used titles (and have rewards program for it) - the profit margin is astoundingly higher. Although the publisher can offer some rebates, like if you own the prior title, you get a discount on the sequel. These are few and far between though.

I bought a PS3 to put linux on it. But that was when it first came out, and there aren't many games on it, so no compelling reason to own it. I only put linux on it to try out Cell programming. Honestly YDL was slooooowwwww on the PS3. Other than Cell programming, there's no compelling reason to put linux on a PS3. Sony was selling the PS3 at a loss, and could do so because of future profits from selling games. I'm not sure if the newer Slim models are profitable or not, but I understand them removing support for it. (my conspiracy theory is that IBM also twisted their arm, since a Cell-BE blade or workstation is $8000+). Now, I use my PS3 for games occasionally, but mostly for blu-ray. I don't feel ripped off. The PS3 still does quite a lot, just not Everything.

Disagree with "shuts off servers for favorite game" argument too. If they want to stop running "official servers" fine - but they should just release open-source version of a dedicated server for anyone who wants to run their own server, after they stopped caring about their old titles. id software consistently released the source for their entire games, not just the server.

I don't think I've ever heard of someone justifying piracy because there was no demo available...Did anyone pirate a game just to try it, then like it and buy the full version? I've heard of people buying the game, hating the DRM, then getting the crack for it so they could actually play what they paid for.

He left out high school and college students (bulk of game pirates) in the "I'm too poor" argument. They all got the consoles or PC's as presents from their parents, and can't budget $60/month for games because they aren't working. And if the parents are already paying for their housing and food, they don't want to buy their kids new games every month, so those kids do what's easy - pirate games.

In all though, I do agree with him - that you should pay for games because developers worked hard on them.

Also if you see a title that is older and discounted, and a new copy is $19.99 and the used one is $17.99 - please buy the new one, cause the developers get $0.00 from used game sales.

music at 1:43

Johann Johannsson - The Sun's Gone Dim and The Sky's Black from the album IBM 1401: A User's Manual

>> ^Chaucer:

This was only the first round score. It went on:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/13/ibm-watson-takes-jeopardy
-champs/
"Though Watson ended the exhibition in the lead with $4,400 compared to Jenning’s $3,400 and Rutter’s $1,200, a continuation of that battle shown on internal televisions during lunch revealed that Jenning had pulled ahead after scoring a Daily Double. Watson still isn’t perfect, it seems."
>> ^entr0py:
>> ^Chaucer:
Actually, this story has been going around that the computer won. Which is WRONG! If you get the rest of the story, you'll know that the computer ends up getting stomped by Jennings by the end of the segment.

You're probably thinking of a different test. Watson did win the game shown in the video. Though they only played single Jeopardy. http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/ibms-wat
son-supercomputer-destroys-all-humans-in-jeopardy-pract/
Final Score
Watson : $4,400
Ken : $3,400
Brad : $1,200.



I hope they do more of these with v2, v3, v4, Skynet, etc.

This was only the first round score. It went on:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/13/ibm-watson-takes-jeopardy-champs/

"Though Watson ended the exhibition in the lead with $4,400 compared to Jenning’s $3,400 and Rutter’s $1,200, a continuation of that battle shown on internal televisions during lunch revealed that Jenning had pulled ahead after scoring a Daily Double. Watson still isn’t perfect, it seems."

>> ^entr0py:

>> ^Chaucer:
Actually, this story has been going around that the computer won. Which is WRONG! If you get the rest of the story, you'll know that the computer ends up getting stomped by Jennings by the end of the segment.

You're probably thinking of a different test. Watson did win the game shown in the video. Though they only played single Jeopardy. http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/ibms-wat
son-supercomputer-destroys-all-humans-in-jeopardy-pract/
Final Score
Watson : $4,400
Ken : $3,400
Brad : $1,200.

>> ^Chaucer:

Actually, this story has been going around that the computer won. Which is WRONG! If you get the rest of the story, you'll know that the computer ends up getting stomped by Jennings by the end of the segment.


You're probably thinking of a different test. Watson did win the game shown in the video. Though they only played single Jeopardy. http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/ibms-watson-supercomputer-destroys-all-humans-in-jeopardy-pract/

Final Score
Watson : $4,400
Ken : $3,400
Brad : $1,200.

>> ^Chaucer:

Actually, this story has been going around that the computer won. Which is WRONG! If you get the rest of the story, you'll know that the computer ends up getting stomped by Jennings by the end of the segment.


URL for the story?

>> ^Payback:

>> ^ant:
>> ^quantumushroom:
I for one welcome our new...ah fuck it.

There's a group called "ah fuck it"?

You have another explanation for the popularity of Sarah Palin?


Yeah, because she's hot? j/k!

>> ^ant:

>> ^quantumushroom:
I for one welcome our new...ah fuck it.

There's a group called "ah fuck it"?


You have another explanation for the popularity of Sarah Palin?