[Beowulf] IBM's Watson on Jeopardy tonight

[Lux, Jim (337C)]

________________________________________
From: Jonathan Aquilina [eagles051387 at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 07:35
To: "C. Bergström"
Cc: Lux, Jim (337C); Glen Beane; beowulf at beowulf.org
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] IBM's Watson on Jeopardy tonight

On 2/16/11 3:29 PM, "C. Bergström" wrote:
> Doesn't this then raise the question of why we aren't modeling
> computers and programming models after the brain? ;)
>
>
Isn't that the whole purpose of artificial intelligence and neural networks?


--- 
Yes and no..
That field covers a lot of territory, and the specific territory changes with time and fashion.  Neural Nets (under a different name) were the rage in the 50s and 60s until the paper came out proving that they couldn't solve a big class of problems.  All the funding and publications went away, while the AI community chased natural language and LISP for a while, until the idea of multiple layers came up in the 80s, and bingo neural nets were fashionable again (with the added cachet of venture capital.. oh yeah...good work on a ANN could get you a Ferrari, how cool is that if you're a struggling AI PhD candidate on a $500/month stipend)