handoflixue comments on The $125,000 Summer Singularity Challenge - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 29 July 2011 09:02PM

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Comment author: handoflixue 02 August 2011 06:22:40PM 1 point [-]

For one thing, smart people can come up with new algorithms on the fly. For example an organized way of solving the airport puzzle. If that were just a matter of making a more complicated computer program, then why didn't Watson's creators do it?

That's like asking why a human contestant failed to come up with a new algorithm on the fly. Or, put simply: no one is perfect. Not the other players, not Watson, and not Watson's creators. While you've certainly identified a flaw, I'm not sure it's really quite as big a deal as you make it out to be. I mean, Watson did beat actual humans, so clearly they managed something fairly robust.

I don't think Watson is anywhere near an AGI, but the field of AI development seems to mostly include "applied-AI" like Deep Blue and Watson, and failures, so I'm going to go ahead and root for the successes in applied-AI :)

Comment author: brazil84 03 August 2011 12:57:51AM *  0 points [-]

That's like asking why a human contestant failed to come up with a new algorithm on the fly.

I disagree. A human contestant who failed to come up with a new algorithm was perhaps not smart enough, but is still able to engage in the same kind of flexible thinking under less challenging circumstances. I suspect Watson cannot do so under any circumstances.

I mean, Watson did beat actual humans, so clearly they managed something fairly robust.

Without it's super-human buzzer speed, I doubt Watson would have won.

Comment author: gwillen 08 August 2011 06:38:36PM 2 points [-]

I believe that the way things were designed, Ken Jennings was probably at least as good as Watson on buzzer speed. Watson presses the buzzer with a mechanical mechanism, to give it a latency similar to a finger; and Watson doesn't start going for the buzzer until it sees the 'buzzer unlocked' signal. By contrast, Ken Jennings has said that he starts pressing the buzzer before the signal, relying on his intuitive sense of the typical delay between the completion of a question and the buzzer-unlock signal.

Comment author: brazil84 08 August 2011 08:49:35PM 5 points [-]

Here's what Ken Jennings had to say:

Watson does have a big advantage in this regard, since it can knock out a microsecond-precise buzz every single time with little or no variation. Human reflexes can't compete with computer circuits in this regard. But I wouldn't call this unfair ... precise timing just happens to be one thing computers are better at than we humans. It's not like I think Watson should try buzzing in more erratically just to give homo sapiens a chance.

Here's what Wikipedia says:

The Jeopardy! staff used different means to notify Watson and the human players when to buzz, which was critical in many rounds. The humans were notified by a light, which took them tenths of a second to perceive. Watson was notified by an electronic signal and could activate the buzzer within about eight milliseconds. The humans tried to compensate for the perception delay by anticipating the light, but the variation in the anticipation time was generally too great to fall within Watson's response time. Watson did not operate to anticipate the notification signal.

Comment author: gwillen 08 August 2011 11:29:27PM 0 points [-]

Interesting, thanks. Upvote for doing some actual research. ;-)

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