anybody else following [s]Skynet's[/s] Watson's progress?

[Requia ☣]

It would actually make it possible to keep track of the tens to hundreds of thousands of laws on the books...

I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing.

wouldn't it also point out the inconsistencies and superflousness in the laws?

Anybody whose spent 5 minutes studying the law should understand that.

Seriously, because of an oversight by the state legislature, its technically a felony to own five or more computers in Utah, at least according to those judges that believe in laws as written instead of laws as intended.  I would rather not let prosecutors find out about this shit easily when they go on a witch hunt.

[Elder Iptuous]

soooo...
it would be better to leave the labyrinthine law set that we have in place hoping that lawyers are not clever enough to find out about the nasty bits?

i don't understand opposition to a tool that would allow anyone, in plain language to parse the mountain of laws that exist, or that could shine a spotlight on the inelegant nature of our system...

also...
it's here.
it's now.

[Rumckle]

So, let me get this straight.  They built the world's biggest, most badass computer, and it...plays quiz shows.

OH, GODDAMMIT!

I hate people.  I fucking hate them.  Even the smart ones.  ESPECIALLY the smart ones.

Deep Blue (or at least part of it) ended up working for an airline company, I believe.

[Requia ☣]

soooo...
it would be better to leave the labyrinthine law set that we have in place hoping that lawyers are not clever enough to find out about the nasty bits?

i don't understand opposition to a tool that would allow anyone, in plain language to parse the mountain of laws that exist, or that could shine a spotlight on the inelegant nature of our system...

also...
it's here.
it's now.

Not just anyone would be allowed access.  It'd get the same kind of paywall PACER (a database of court rulings, somewhat critical for figuring out case law) does.

[Elder Iptuous]

Are court rulings not public domain?

[Requia ☣]

Sure, but the database that the court rulings are kept in is still locked up tight.  People are allowed to republish and all, but its only a fraction of the case law.

[Pope Lecherous]

I'm pretty impressed!
for anyone that is unfamiliar with the story, Watson is an IBM computer.  after they did the Deep Blue thing and beat Kasparov at chess, they wanted a bigger challenge.  the guys that were involved were at a restaurant mulling over what would be a good challenge for a super computer to beat a human at, and a bunch of patrons crowded in to the bar.  upon investigating what the hub bub was, they found it was Ken Jennings doing his famous Jeopardy! run.  a-ha!  there's the answer....

so this machine is pretty damned impressive at processing natural language and answering questions.  er.... at questioning answers, that is.

it's a three day game, and yesterday was the second day with Watson kicking Jennings and Rutter's collective ass. 

in between rounds they have little bumpers where the IBM guys talk about the Watson software and capabilities, and how they hope it will help humanity.
Like i said, i'm pretty damned impressed.

Thanks for that OP.  IIRC trebek said they were going to send the clue to Watson via text.  I suppose that if they were going to do that vice "through spoken language" they clue should have been sent after trebek finished reading it out loud.

Also, Ken looked pissed the whole game.  Maybe he was intimidated by the machine or the producers...

[Triple Zero]

So, let me get this straight.  They built the world's biggest, most badass computer, and it...plays quiz shows.

OH, GODDAMMIT!

I hate people.  I fucking hate them.  Even the smart ones.  ESPECIALLY the smart ones.

Deep Blue (or at least part of it) ended up working for an airline company, I believe.

Um they took Deep Blue apart to prevent Kasparov from getting a rematch? (Check Wikipedia, there's some interesting bits about semi-foul play on IBM's part).

Also about Watson. First, it didn't do voice recognition. The question appears as text on a screen for the candidates to see just as the presenter starts speaking it. Watson uses the text.

Second, it's just an IBM marketing gimmick. Apparently it's easier to check if a possible answer might just be correct, than to generate suitable candidate answers. This explains the nonsensical top 3 considerations the machine makes. The "intelligence" comes from an "answer generating" module and a "sort by most probably correct" module.

Sure it's a wonderful project, but I'm not sure how good it'd be at other tasks.

Like Derren Brown's mentalisms, a lot of the "magic" comes from good showmanship.

Regardless, to second Ippy, yes I am impressed as well.

[Subtract Eight!]

I want to talk to it and make smarmy comments that are indirectly bigoted to robots.  

"Wow!  You must be pleased with your success, given your handicap!"

I laughed aloud.