NOVA - Jeopardy Watson REMINDER it's on tonight, tuesday and wednesday

[Minjin]

Watson doesn't know when that light is going to come on. Sure, he has fast reactions but the two meatbags know from the pace of Trebek's reading when the light will come on. That nullifies Watson's advantage, IMHO.

Besides, the fact that he can even get the answers correct is the important thing here. Anyone who watches this and isn't blown away by Watson's performance simply doesn't understand the difficulty in programming and engineering it. This is science fiction come to life. We live in incredible times.

 

[sdifox]

For sure it will be hard to replicate, we're complicated things. I'm glad people are working towards it though. Even if we don't find sentient life in the Universe besides our own, we will create it. I just like to marvel in the beauty of humanity.

Also, giving Watson that capability might be very easy to do, but the fact they didn't do it tells a bit about the people designing Watson.

? You understand there was a crap load of things to do right? I would be surprised if they did not miss something.

 

[nanette1985]

We live in incredible times.

Indeed we do. Can't wait for tomorrow.

 

[sdifox]

Indeed we do. Can't wait for tomorrow.

I am starting to suspect Rubycon = Watson :awe:

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[sdifox]

I think the us military probably has something like this already.


holly shit, Watson is Canadian! :awe:


link removed since it has spoiler info. wtf were these people thinking...oh, 9pm already... that is why they posted the result, they are in EST...

 

[BrokenVisage]

You can tell Ken knows pretty much all the questions being asked, or at least is confident enough to try and answer them. He's cocking his head in a "shucks, I knew that one" kind of way every time Alex calls Watson's name instead of his. So the fact that Watson is so much quicker on the draw over 2 veterans of the game is impressive in and of itself.

I mean how does it know when to buzz in? Does it kick in once Alex stops talking after calculations are done and a confidence level is reached? It just seems like if Watson really knows the answer to something he's always going to win the buzzer battle, whereas with humans even if you're just as sure there's always a chance you'll be beat to the punch.

 

[sandorski]

I think the us military probably has something like this already.


holly shit, Watson is Canadian! :awe:


link removed since it has spoiler info. wtf were these people thinking...oh, 9pm already... that is why they posted the result, they are in EST...

When in doubt, go with the Universe's center.

 

[lupi]

you could see ken start to get agitated at losing out on so many buzzers.

 

[sdifox]

you could see ken start to get agitated at losing out on so many buzzers.

It would be funny if he actually loses it and trashes the avatar display :biggrin:

 

[spidey07]

you could see ken start to get agitated at losing out on so many buzzers.

Yep. Even my wife got most of them before the question was finished A computer only needs a millisecond to react.

 

[TheVrolok]

You can tell Ken knows pretty much all the questions being asked, or at least is confident enough to try and answer them. He's cocking his head in a "shucks, I knew that one" kind of way every time Alex calls Watson's name instead of his. So the fact that Watson is so much quicker on the draw over 2 veterans of the game is impressive in and of itself.

I mean how does it know when to buzz in? Does it kick in once Alex stops talking after calculations are done and a confidence level is reached? It just seems like if Watson really knows the answer to something he's always going to win the buzzer battle, whereas with humans even if you're just as sure there's always a chance you'll be beat to the punch.

I haven't yet seen/heard how exactly Watson knows it's time to ring in. I know the contestants look at an off screen light that illuminates once Alex is done reading, I would imagine Watson gets this information in the same way he gets the question - a digital signal. So in reality, Watson has most likely already done all the necessary research and formulated an answer before the light even comes on and then it simply "hits the button" as soon as he can. I suppose we're talking milliseconds faster than his human counterparts (although Watson is incapable of ringing in early, and would never be penalized for incorrectly anticipating the light like some humans are), but really, that's all that matters, whoever hits the button first, wins. I think the game is pretty heavily stacked against the humans, but honestly, the game is just a vehicle to present this new system - the fact that Watson quickly analyzes and retrieves a correct answer is the impressive part.

 

[a123456]

I haven't yet seen/heard how exactly Watson knows it's time to ring in. I know the contestants look at an off screen light that illuminates once Alex is done reading, I would imagine Watson gets this information in the same way he gets the question - a digital signal. So in reality, Watson has most likely already done all the necessary research and formulated an answer before the light even comes on and then it simply "hits the button" as soon as he can. I suppose we're talking milliseconds faster than his human counterparts (although Watson is incapable of ringing in early, and would never be penalized for incorrectly anticipating the light like some humans are), but really, that's all that matters, whoever hits the button first, wins. I think the game is pretty heavily stacked against the humans, but honestly, the game is just a vehicle to present this new system - the fact that Watson quickly analyzes and retrieves a correct answer is the impressive part.

The problem is that there's no real good way to solve the problem. Human reaction is relatively fixed time within X milliseconds. So if you say Watson can't ring in for Y milliseconds where Y > X, then the humans would end up with 30k+, like Ken used to do to all of his opponents. If Y < X, nothing changes. And if Y is random, then it'll "even it out" slightly but then it's just RNG determining who gets the right answer.

 

[zinfamous]

Yeah,

Spoiler

I was surprised at the low, odd amount that Watson wagered for the final question. I wonder what factors he considers to determine what that amount will be?

it was a very loaded question, but the fact that the category was so insanely unambiguous--US Cities--I'm astonished that he didn't even stick to the category.



The gasp in the room was amazing, and it was profoundly embarrassing, but in all honesty, let's talk about Watson's (very real) limitations with a grain of irony, considering that he is currently mopping the floor with the meatbags.

 

[zinfamous]

Watson doesn't know when that light is going to come on. Sure, he has fast reactions but the two meatbags know from the pace of Trebek's reading when the light will come on. That nullifies Watson's advantage, IMHO.

Besides, the fact that he can even get the answers correct is the important thing here. Anyone who watches this and isn't blown away by Watson's performance simply doesn't understand the difficulty in programming and engineering it. This is science fiction come to life. We live in incredible times.

This

 

[Matthiasa]

Mopping the floor would be putting it lightly.
Would have double the other contestants money 2-3 times for them to get where he's currently sitting.

It's past the time of not saying so nah.

 

[Number1]

Supercomputer on 'Jeopardy'

 

[zinfamous]

It would be funny if he actually loses it and trashes the avatar display :biggrin:

as the credits were rolling, it looked like the other guy was flipping off the avatar.



I think he was just showing a "#1 sign" to Ken, though...which is also kinda douchey. :hmm:

 

[TheVrolok]

The problem is that there's no real good way to solve the problem. Human reaction is relatively fixed time within X milliseconds. So if you say Watson can't ring in for Y milliseconds where Y > X, then the humans would end up with 30k+, like Ken used to do to all of his opponents. If Y < X, nothing changes. And if Y is random, then it'll "even it out" slightly but then it's just RNG determining who gets the right answer.

Yeah I agree, that was essentially my point. If Watson had a typical "human response delay," he probably wouldn't be doing much better than either of his opponents as they all seem to know many of the answers. But really, winning Jeopardy isn't the point - the point is that just the fact that Watson can so quickly pick so many correct answers is incredibly impressive.

I agree with what others are saying about the final Jeopardy question; he didn't even stay within the category. Odd. Small coding mistake, I guess.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I'm not at all impressed that Watson can answer the questions quicker than the humans. Computers have always been able to do this. What's truly impressive, as others have said, is that Watson can answer questions correctly, at all. Human language is the most sophisticated thing we've ever produced, and getting a computer to understand it so well is truly remarkable. I can't even imagine how incredible it would be to be able to program with a natural human language and not the unwieldy, unnatural anachronisms we're stuck with today because of the hardware constraints of yesteryear.

I hope that I'll live to see a machine that can ask questions. (And that it doesn't pull an AM!)

 

[JujuFish]

Seems pretty clear to me that the disparity lies in the timing of ringing in to answer the questions. You can clearly see Ken attempt to buzz in nearly every time but almost always losing out. I imagine if we had seen Rutter's hand that he'd have looked the same.

 

[MrChad]

Yeah,

Spoiler

I was surprised at the low, odd amount that Watson wagered for the final question. I wonder what factors he considers to determine what that amount will be?

His bet made perfect sense,

Spoiler

given that he had a substantial lead at the time that made it impossible for the other competitors to catch him.

 

[TheVrolok]

His bet made perfect sense,

Spoiler

given that he had a substantial lead at the time that made it impossible for the other competitors to catch him.

I don't know about "perfect sense." I suppose it depends on how comfortable one is with his knowledge of the final Jeopardy category. I'm not sure if/how Watson would be programmed to calculate this. You would think that with a fairly easy category like tonight's he would, in theory, be fairly confident in his knowledge of the subject and stand to wager a bit more money to end with a higher total. Instead, he risked an essentially insignificant amount relative to his lead which indicates that either he somehow decided he didn't know much about the category, or that he doesn't know how to calculate his confidence based on category alone.

 

[MrChad]

I don't know about "perfect sense." I suppose it depends on how comfortable one is with his knowledge of the final Jeopardy category. I'm not sure if/how Watson would be programmed to calculate this. You would think that with a fairly easy category like tonight's he would, in theory, be fairly confident in his knowledge of the subject and stand to wager a bit more money to end with a higher total. Instead, he risked an essentially insignificant amount relative to his lead which indicates that either he somehow decided he didn't know much about the category, or that he doesn't know how to calculate his confidence based on category alone.

I'm curious to know the formulas for the double jeopardy and final jeopardy wagers. It may place a greater emphasis on Watson's standing in the game versus confidence in the category. I'm not even sure how Watson could calculate confidence in a final Jeopardy category, given that the category is so broad and there's no way to know how the question will be presented.

 

[her209]

Seems pretty clear to me that the disparity lies in the timing of ringing in to answer the questions. You can clearly see Ken attempt to buzz in nearly every time but almost always losing out. I imagine if we had seen Rutter's hand that he'd have looked the same.

I was saying that the human contestants should try to outbuzz Watson on every question and then take the time given between being called on and the times up buzzard to come up with an answer.

 

[her209]

You may post uncensored spoilers and otherwise openly discuss the day's show only after the show has aired for everyone in the US. The show is done airing on the west coast at 8pm PST, or 11pm EST, so that's when you may post uncensored spoilers.

Don't be a jackass; if you can't post correctly, you won't be posting at all.
-ViRGE[/b]

What about our buddies in Hawaii who are 2 hours behind PST?