The “Jeopardy!”-winning super computer is going to college
IBM is announcing Wednesday that it will provide a Watson system to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the first time the computer is being sent to a university. Just like the flesh-and-blood students who will work on it, Watson is leaving home to sharpen its skills. Course work will include English and math.
“It’s a big step for us,” said Michael Henesey, IBM’s vice president of business development. “We consider it absolutely strategic technology for IBM in the future. And we want to evolve it, of course, thoughtfully, but also in collaboration with the best and brightest in academia.”
Watson is a cognitive system that can process massive amounts of data, including natural language. To beat “Jeopardy!” champions in 2011, it was fed the contents of encyclopedias, dictionaries, books, news dispatches and movie scripts. For its medical work, it takes in medical textbooks and journals. After it takes in data, Watson can provide information like a “Jeopardy!” answer, a medical diagnosis or an estimate of financial risk.
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Hey AP – this is really scraping the bottom. Just saying.
platypus on January 31, 2013 at 10:09 PM
Will Watson become a liberal, or will he rebel and think for himself?
Fenris on January 31, 2013 at 10:12 PM
Ha! You’ll have to fry its CPU before you can indoctrinate it.
John the Libertarian on January 31, 2013 at 10:14 PM
It will then go to Harvard, be appointed president of the Harvard Law Review, change its name to Abdul Hassan Sharia, have a laptop ghost-write its autobiography, and eventually declare itself the equal of every computer that came before it.
Bishop on January 31, 2013 at 10:24 PM
Will Watson become a liberal, or will he rebel and think for himself?
Fenris on January 31, 2013 at 10:12 PM
No matter
hisits decisions, Watson WILL always claim allegiance to the Liberal cause. His builders will see to it.See, even super-duper-puper-computers agree with Obama. Who are you to dissent peon”
Reminds me of 2112: “Our great computers…”
RavingLunatic on January 31, 2013 at 10:26 PM
Who are you to dissent, you miserable worthless peon?”
RavingLunatic on January 31, 2013 at 10:28 PM
I should’ve just until Bishop posted; same idea but much funnier.
Fenris on January 31, 2013 at 10:40 PM
Don’t let it go online. If it downloads copies of System Shock 1 & 2, it might get very bad ideas.
MelonCollie on January 31, 2013 at 11:42 PM
Send him to Harvard, he’ll fit right in.
Know nothing pre programmed sack of s#it that will ruin the lives of others.
I’m actually looking forward to a judgement day or zombie apocolypse to thin out the herd.
Harsh conditions, survival instincts, and a willingness to fight might just come in handy.
Nothing changes for me. I won’t be sitting on my couch sucking on a crack pipe waiting for a check to arrive no matter what happens.
Those who do, might be in trouble.
Computers have no problem deleting useless files… they even make programs to do just that very thing.
On second thought… perhaps Watson in charge might not be so bad?
Hog Wild on February 1, 2013 at 12:16 AM
You mean the story or NBC?
Feedie on February 1, 2013 at 1:03 AM