I notice that CACM Editor-in-Chief Moshe Vardi’s letter in the July 2010 issue of CACM speaks to what he calls “Hypercriticality,” and cites my post of May 4 here on the CCC Blog. (You can find Moshe’s letter in CACM vol. 53, no. 7, p. 5; if you are logged into the CACM website, you can find it here.) Moshe appears to agree that we in the computing research community are often too harsh when reviewing one another’s work.
(Contributed by John Leslie King, University of Michigan)
Last week it was Jeopardy! superstar Ken Jennings who was facing
competition. This week it’s assistants everywhere.
In the second in a fascinating series of articles titled “Smarter Than You Think” being published by The New York Times Magazine this summer, writers Steve Lohr and John Markoff illustrate how artificial intelligence is transforming how we answer questions, complete simple tasks, and assist one another.
This Sunday’s story highlights the work of Eric Horvitz, a member of the CCC Council, whose team at Microsoft Research has developed a “medical avatar” that can understand speech, recognize symptoms of pediatric conditions, and reason according to simple rules. The avatar is able to interface with real-life patients and make initial diagnoses of their ailments, much as any medical assistant would. All the while, it’s piquing the curiosity and earning the trust of the children it’s serving — a future generation of computer users.
Eric’s team is also working on a related class of “digital assistants”; visitors to his office are greeted by an avatar who knows all about his schedule and meeting habits. And as The Times‘ story emphasizes, these technologies and others like it are affecting many facets of our daily lives, from in-car GPS navigation systems to iPhone apps, from telemarketers to product manufacturers’ support centers, etc.
I encourage you to read this outstanding feature in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine — and to explore the terrific interactive multimedia accompanying it:
- The medical avatar in action;
- How the medical avatar could change future visits to the doctor; and
And you can learn more about Eric’s work on his website: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/horvitz/.
(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, Director, CCC)
Ken Jennings, the man known for his record-breaking streak of 74 consecutive wins and $2.52 million in earnings on the popular TV quiz show Jeopardy! back in 2004, may have some competition on his hands.
This Sunday’s New York Times Magazine contains an incredibly fascinating expose about “Watson,” an advanced “question answering” machine that IBM researchers have been busy developing for the past half-decade. The story provides a step-by-step account of the challenges and research advances underlying Watson’s development — including a detailed description of how Watson works today. It chronicles early wins — and, notably, losses — for the supercomputer versus real-life former Jeopardy! contests. And it describes ways in which natural language processing and data mining advances enabled by Watson’s development could be extended to other fields, like healthcare, e-government, and transportation.
This Sunday’s story is a must-read — and it’s just the first in a series titled “Smarter Than You Think” the NY Times is publishing this summer, describing recent advances in AI and robotics, and the potential impact of this work on society.
And don’t forget to try your luck against Watson in a simulated New York Times Web interactive.
(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, Director, CCC)
