Monday, March 14, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Jeopardy! The IBM challenge - Day 3 - Grand finale!
Tonight was the IBM challenge grand finale. With Rutter and Jenning "beaten to death" during day 2, the stake was high: would wetware have to concede the victory to hardware?
The first period was so-so: both human contestants made use of the 10-seconds delay allowed before answering when one presses the buzzer, and buzzed within a second of the end of the clue. In most of the cases, this proved enough to find the correct answer. Anyway, Watson managed to get some points there.
It's also interesting to notice that some of the questions Watson passed had the correct answer among the three "most plausible" choices, albeit not the first one and usually with a very low score.
End of second period:
Congratulations to IBM and to the Watson team. This was a splendid demonstration and I bet many, many applications will emerge, probably not as fun as this one, but most likely as interesting.
The first period was so-so: both human contestants made use of the 10-seconds delay allowed before answering when one presses the buzzer, and buzzed within a second of the end of the clue. In most of the cases, this proved enough to find the correct answer. Anyway, Watson managed to get some points there.
- Watson: $4,200
- Jennings: $3,400
- Rutter: $2,400
It's also interesting to notice that some of the questions Watson passed had the correct answer among the three "most plausible" choices, albeit not the first one and usually with a very low score.
End of second period:
- Watson: $4,800
- Jennings: $8,600
- Rutter: $2,400
- Watson: $23,400
- Jennings: $18,200
- Rutter: $5,600
- Watson: $41,413
- Jennings: $19,200
- Rutter: $11,200
Congratulations to IBM and to the Watson team. This was a splendid demonstration and I bet many, many applications will emerge, probably not as fun as this one, but most likely as interesting.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Jeopardy! The IBM challenge - Day 2
Today could have been dubbed "let the spanking begin!": Watson really kicked asses.
During the first period, only one miss, which was also missed by all the players ("Picasso", "Impressionism" and "Cubism" were mentioned instead of "Modern Art"). By the end of it, the scores were as follow:
The Final Jeopardy clue was "U.S. City", and the enigma was to find the city was first airport was named after a WWII hero and the second after a WWII battle. If both contestants found the correct answer ("Chicago"), and bet most of their money, Watson went Canada ("What is Toronto???????"), but only bet $947.
The final scores for day 2 are
During the first period, only one miss, which was also missed by all the players ("Picasso", "Impressionism" and "Cubism" were mentioned instead of "Modern Art"). By the end of it, the scores were as follow:
- Watson: $23,881
- Jennings: $1,200
- Rutter: $3,400
- Watson: $36,681
- Jennings: $2,400
- Rutter: $5,400
The Final Jeopardy clue was "U.S. City", and the enigma was to find the city was first airport was named after a WWII hero and the second after a WWII battle. If both contestants found the correct answer ("Chicago"), and bet most of their money, Watson went Canada ("What is Toronto???????"), but only bet $947.
The final scores for day 2 are
- Watson: $35,734
- Jennings: $4,800
- Rutter: $10,400
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Jeopardy! The IBM challenge - Day 1
Watson is opposed to Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. These candidates won over two millions dollars each and are considered to be the best players in the world.
During the first period, Watson did incredibly well, being beaten to answer certain questions by only a fraction of a second.
During the first break the scores were:
The second period was however less fortunate. A close miss ("What is a leg?" instead of "What is a missing leg?"), some mistakes and several passes.
Day one achieved with:
Tomorrow will be exciting!
During the first period, Watson did incredibly well, being beaten to answer certain questions by only a fraction of a second.
During the first break the scores were:
- Watson: $5,200
- Rutter: $1,000
- Jennings: $200
The second period was however less fortunate. A close miss ("What is a leg?" instead of "What is a missing leg?"), some mistakes and several passes.
Day one achieved with:
- Watson: $5,000
- Rutter: $5,000
- Jennings: $2,000
Tomorrow will be exciting!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Hackers Successfully Breached Nasdaq Systems
Fortunately, this was only the Internet front-end. From the article, it seems that suspicious files were found in a service platform, which could indicate that more malwares are to be found in the systems. The article doesn't mention what services were affected and if there is a potential for these to have been disseminated to other financial platforms or institutions.
Another article has more details on this. For instance, the platform is said to be used by Fortune500 companies to exchange confidential information. Also, it seems that this went on for a year without being detected. As of now, the matter is being investigated by the FBI.
Let's get a bit creative and let's imagine what are the possible scenarios.
1. The hackers got confidential information, either allowing them to invest with the equivalent of insider information, or to sell that information to other parties.
2. The hackers were able to modify the information in transit, biasing investments, and possibly altering the way some companies did business.
3. The hackers were able to suppress certain communications.
At this point, it seems that, although the backdoor was there, nothing was done.
I bet that in the next few days, all the financial places will start internal audits of their own systems. I hope there won't be too many surprises.
By the way, the official NASDAQ OMX statement can be found here.
Another article has more details on this. For instance, the platform is said to be used by Fortune500 companies to exchange confidential information. Also, it seems that this went on for a year without being detected. As of now, the matter is being investigated by the FBI.
Let's get a bit creative and let's imagine what are the possible scenarios.
1. The hackers got confidential information, either allowing them to invest with the equivalent of insider information, or to sell that information to other parties.
2. The hackers were able to modify the information in transit, biasing investments, and possibly altering the way some companies did business.
3. The hackers were able to suppress certain communications.
At this point, it seems that, although the backdoor was there, nothing was done.
I bet that in the next few days, all the financial places will start internal audits of their own systems. I hope there won't be too many surprises.
By the way, the official NASDAQ OMX statement can be found here.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
The war against the machines has started ...
... at least on Jeopardy!
IBM has been developing an AI system that can "understand" and answer questions. Dubbed "Watson", in honour of the company's founder Thomas J. Watson, it is able to parse a question given in natural language (i.e. in english), and to find answers in its gigantic databases.
To push this a step further, the DeepQA team, lead by Dr. David Ferrucci, developed it into a form that can play Jeopardy!, namely, understand the question and context, look for possible answers, select the most plausible and present it as a question.
And that under 3 seconds.
For example, in a video on the Jeopardy! page, the question was "As Juliet knows, this 9-letter word means 'why'". Watson correctly answered "What is wherefore?". In order to respond correctly, it had to determine that:
On February 14,15 and 16, Watson will play in front of the audience in a real Jeopardy! From the news, it already beat the two best players during free games. I guess the real show will be extremely exciting to watch.
Direct link to the Jeopardy! minisite on Watson
More information on Watson from IBM
IBM has been developing an AI system that can "understand" and answer questions. Dubbed "Watson", in honour of the company's founder Thomas J. Watson, it is able to parse a question given in natural language (i.e. in english), and to find answers in its gigantic databases.
To push this a step further, the DeepQA team, lead by Dr. David Ferrucci, developed it into a form that can play Jeopardy!, namely, understand the question and context, look for possible answers, select the most plausible and present it as a question.
And that under 3 seconds.
For example, in a video on the Jeopardy! page, the question was "As Juliet knows, this 9-letter word means 'why'". Watson correctly answered "What is wherefore?". In order to respond correctly, it had to determine that:
- The expected answer is to be found in Romeo and Juliet
- The expected answer is a 9-letter word
- The expected answer has to mean "why"
On February 14,15 and 16, Watson will play in front of the audience in a real Jeopardy! From the news, it already beat the two best players during free games. I guess the real show will be extremely exciting to watch.
Direct link to the Jeopardy! minisite on Watson
More information on Watson from IBM
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