[Beowulf] IBM's Watson on Jeopardy tonight

[Prentice Bisbal]

On 03/10/2011 06:23 PM, Karen Shaeffer wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 01:06:35PM -0500, Robert G. Brown wrote:
>> On Wed, 16 Feb 2011, "C. Bergström" wrote:
>>
>>>> We are, but that problem is, well, "hard".  As in grand challenge hard.
>>> I wonder how you'd really describe the human brain learning in terms of a 
>>> programming model....
>>
>> Well, AI researchers tend to have two answers.  One is semantic and the
>> other is microscopic.  The semantic description is
>> functional/operational, broken down in terms of e.g. conditionals and
>> logical elements, and doesn't come close to explaining consciousness
>> (see Searle's "Chinese Room" objection):
>>
> 
> Hi,
> Well, IBM is presenting "Inside the mind of Watson" at Stanford University
> on March 14. The speaker is Chris Welty of IBM. There are actually several
> presentations. Here is one:
> 
> http://bmir.stanford.edu/events/view.php/inside_the_mind_of_watson
> 
> There is another one at 12:15 PM earlier that day associated with the
> symbolic systems group. Those are often open to the public, if you
> ask for permission to attend.
> 
> Karen

This reminded me: On Feb 9, 2011,  PBS aired a Nova episode about the
development of Watson. The entire episode is available online:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/smartest-machine-on-earth.html

There's other interesting links and videos available on that page, too.


-- 
Prentice