'Watson' on Jeopardy

Well, the first episode of 'Watson' on Jeopardy was shown last night. I didn't see it live, but luckily it's available on Youtube, at least for a little while.

It's a great achievement. Question-answering systems are a hot topic now - my colleague Ming Li, for example, has created such a system, based on word associations it finds on the Internet. But Watson is much better than anything I've seen before. A system like Watson will be extremely useful for researchers and libraries. Instead of having to staff general inquiry telephone lines with a person, libraries can use a system like Watson to answer questions of patrons. And, of course, there will be applications like medical diagnoses and computer tech support, too.

I predict, however, that the reaction to Watson will be largely hostile, especially from Mysterian philosophers (like Chalmers), strong AI skeptics (like the Dreyfus brothers), and hardcore conservative theists firmly committed to the special status of humans (like David Gelernter). We'll also hear naysaying from jealous engineers (like this letter from Llewellyn C. Wall, who earns my nomination for Jerk of the Week).

Despite its impressive performance, we're going to hear lots of claims that Watson "doesn't really think". Critics will point gleefully to Watson stumbling on an answer, replying "finis" when the correct response was "terminus" or "terminal" -- as if humans never make a mistake on Jeopardy. We're going to hear columnists stating "But Watson can't smell a rose or compose a poem" - as if that is a cogent criticism of a system designed to answer questions.

I predict none of these naysayers will deal with the real issue: in what essential way does Watson really differ from the way people think? People make associations, too, and answer questions based on sometimes tenuous connections. Vague assertions like "Watson doesn't really think" or "Watson has no mental model of the world" or "Watson is just playing word games" aren't going to cut it, unless critics can come up with a really rigorous formulation of their argument.

Watson is just another nail in the coffin of Strong AI deniers like Dreyfus - even if they don't realize it yet.

Addendum: Ah, I see the moronic critiques are already dribbling in: from Gordon Haff we get typical boilerplate: "Watson is in no real sense thinking and the use of the term "understanding" in the context of Watson should be taken as anthropomorphism rather than a literal description." But without a formal definition of what means to "think" in a "real sense", Haff's claim is just so much chin music.