Comments on: I’ll Take Potent Potables for $1000, Alex

By: Robert K S

Robert K S — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 21:32:57 +0000

Hi David, can you provide more information? Which syndicated radio show was it that Woodman appeared on, and when? Or is your only source the post by “Helen Turner” to the Ken Jennings message board? Thanks–RKS

By: Buddha Is Laughing

Buddha Is Laughing — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 22:21:58 +0000

David Clarke,

Interesting tidbit! Thanks for the information. I had just assumed they had gotten better at tweaking output from the more traditional electronically generated text-to-speech conversion by using sound processing algorithms. My grandfather always said that any day you learn something new is not a wasted day. Thanks for the assist!

By: David Clarke

David Clarke — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 22:08:20 +0000

@Buddha Is Laughing. The reason Watson’s voice is so nuanced and human sounding is because it was provided by a human, not generated electronically.

While IBM initially tried to keep it anonymous, NY Times readers and several bloggers “outed” Watson’s voice as that of actor/audiobook narrator Jeff Woodman.

Woodman recently confirmed this fact on a syndicated radio show. The voice is from recordings he made for IBM in 2004 for a text-to-speech program.

By: puzzling

puzzling — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 03:43:32 +0000

Watchable videos of the practice round, and an interview with one of the IBM team:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/ibms-watson-supercomputer-destroys-all-humans-in-jeopardy-pract/

This video set is interesting because it shows the answers and confidence scores that Watson is assigning on the screen.

IBM is clearly aiming this leap in AI at commercial applications in medicine.

No doubt this technology set will also rapidly be adopted by government “intelligence” agencies in the decade to come. One more reason that citizens must guard their privacy in digital domains at all costs. Information will be associated and packaged in ways that we cannot yet imagine.

By: puzzling

puzzling — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 01:28:30 +0000

And from Wired:

Named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, the supercomputer is one of the most advanced systems on Earth and was programmed by 25 IBM scientists over the last four years. Researchers scanned some 200 million pages of content — or the equivalent of about one million books — into the system, including books, movie scripts and entire encyclopedias. Watson is not your run-of-the-mill computer. The system is powered by 10 racks of IBM POWER 750 servers running Linux, and uses 15 terabytes of RAM, 2,880 processor cores and can operate at 80 teraflops. That’s 80 trillion operations per second. The machine is the size of 10 refrigerators.

By: puzzling

puzzling — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 00:04:47 +0000

There is an update today:

IBM’s Watson supercomputer won a practice round against Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter and raised a lot of questions about the capabilities of artificial intelligence... Rutter said Watson can be a bit overwhelming. Jennings and Rutter quipped about how computer capabilities are part of human advancement, but acknowledged that they were a bit uncomfortable. Jennings said he “didn’t want technology to advance that far just yet.”

Should be an excellent match.

By: Anonymously Yours

Anonymously Yours — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 11:16:45 +0000

I’ll take Profits over 100 million…….

By: Lottakatz

Lottakatz — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:59:54 +0000

Thanks for the vid puzzling; fascinating and exciting.

By: Buddha Is Laughing

Buddha Is Laughing — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 06:54:17 +0000

In addition to being a test of Watson’s confidence algorithms, it will also be an interesting display of what the cutting edge in natural language recognition is capable of doing.

Too bad they can’t get the late Majel Barrett-Roddenberry to provide the voice of Watson, but I’ll have to say that the vocalization generated by Watson in the video puzzling linked to is much more nuanced and human sounding than computer voices past.

By: rafflaw

rafflaw — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 16:02:57 +0000

My money is on Jennings. He is a “machine” on that show.

By: Buddha Is Laughing

Buddha Is Laughing — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:31:57 +0000

This will be interesting.

By: James M.

James M. — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:07:43 +0000

That’s awesome! I put “Record Jeopardy” on the calender. Thanks for the post Nal.

By: puzzling

puzzling — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 14:57:00 +0000

They will use regular questions. The word play questions must be extremely challenging to program for.

The confidence algorithm used by the team is fascinating. Here’s a direct link to a video from earlier this summer: