[ExI] Watson On Jeopardy.

[Kelly Anderson]

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 6:33 AM, Richard Loosemore <rpwl at lightlink.com> wrote:
>
> Kelly Anderson wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 5:46 AM, Richard Loosemore <rpwl at lightlink.com> wrote
> You've misunderstood so very much of what is really going on here.

It wouldn't be the first time. I'm here to learn. If you have
something to teach, I am your humble student. I am quite sincere in
this. No kidding.

> There are strong theoretical reasons to believe that this approach is the only one that will
>work, and that the "practitioners of "parlor tricks"" will never actually be able to succeed.  This
>isn't just opinion or speculation, it is the result of a real theoretical analysis.

Risking Clintonese... I suppose Richard, that this depends upon your
definition of 'success'. I would guess that most people would declare
that Watson already succeeded. You dismiss it as "trivial" and a
"parlor trick", while 99% of everyone else thinks it is a great
success already.  If there is derision, I think it is because of your
dismissive attitude about what is clearly a great milestone in
computation, even if it turns out not to be on the path to some "true"
AGI. I, for one, think that with another ten years or so of work, the
Watson approach might pass some version of the Turing test.

If you wrote a paper entitled "Why Watson is an Evolutionary Dead
End", and you were convincing to your peers, I think you would get it
published and it would be helpful to the AI community.

> Also, why do you say "self-described scientist"?  I don't understand if this is supposed to be
>me or someone else or scientists in general.

Carl Sagan, a real scientist, said frequently, "Extraordinary claims
require extraordinary evidence." (even though he may have borrowed the
phrase from Marcello Truzzi.) I understand that you are claiming to
follow the scientific method, and that you do not think of yourself as
a philosopher. If you claim to be a philosopher, stand up and be proud
of that. Some of the most interesting people are philosophers, and
there is nothing wrong with that.

> And why do you assume that I am not doing experiments?!  I am certainly doing that, and
>doing masive numbers of such experiments is at the core of everything I do.

Good to hear. Your papers did not reflect that. Can you point me to
some of your experimental results?

> I don't quite understand how these confusions arose, but you've ended up getting quite the
> opposite idea about what is going on.

All I had to go on was your papers. If what you are saying now is
correct, your papers don't effectively reflect that.

> I have little time today, so may not be able to address your other points.

Understandable.

-Kelly