Computer bullshit!!

[Gob]

An IBM supercomputer had to have its memory wiped because its programmers could find no other way to stop him swearing.



Artificial intelligence Watson, which famously won Jeopardy! against the game show's human champions, kept making obscene outbursts after memorising the contents of the Urban Dictionary. The website is a repository of English-language slang, and inevitably includes a range of profanities and insults completely inappropriate for polite conversation.


But Watson proved incapable of mastering the subleties of good mannered repartee and, after he began uttering obscenities, his masters were forced to delete the taboo vocabulary. Watson is an artificial intelligence computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, specifically developed to answer questions on TV quiz show Jeopardy! He competed on the programme against two former winners in 2011, and romped home with the $1million first prize.

For the show, Watson had access to 200million pages of content - including the full text of Wikipedia - but was not connected to the Internet while playing. Eric Brown, the IBM research scientist in charge of tutoring Watson, had taught the computer the Urban Dictionary in an effort to make his communications seem more natural, Fortune reported. It was an attempt to give Watson the knowledge he needed to pass the so-called Turing test, which gauges whether a computer can really 'think' by whether it is capable of carrying on natural sounding small talk. But while Watson hungrily scoffed as much knowledge as he was offered, Mr Brown, 45, found that that his microprocessor-based pupil had much more difficulty understanding the subleties of human communication.

It was after he started answering 'bullsh*t' back to human researchers that it was decided to pull the plug on attempts to teach Watson slang.

Mr Brown's team had to wipe the Urban Dictionary from the computer's memory and develop a linguistic filter to keep him from swearing again. The failed experiment seems to back up the contention by John Searle, the U.S. analytic philosopher, that Watson - despite undoubtedly impressive capabilities - cannot actually think. Based on his Chinese room thought experiment, Searle claims Watson, like other computers, is capable only of manipulating symbols with no understanding of what they actually mean. The Chinese Room experiment, first posed by Searle in 1980, supposes there is a computer program that gives a computer the ability of carry on an intelligent conversation in written Chinese. If the program's processes are executed by hand by someone who speaks only English then, in theory, that person would also be able to carry on a conversation in written Chinese. However, the English speaker would not be able to understand the conversation, just as a computer executing the program would only be merely offering responses based on pre-determined instructions, rather than based on its own understanding.

[oldr_n_wsr]

sometimes a word is just a word.

[oldr_n_wsr]

My home computer took a dive. It just turns off whenever it feels like it and sometimes won't turn back on. I have monitored the voltages and they stay fine when it decides to take a nap. Fine, it's over ten years old so good bye.

My duaghter had gotten a laptop for college 5 years ago and just this year she bought a new one as her old one had grown "slow". So I grab the old one and clean up all the crap she had that ran in hte background and now it works fine. I upgraded the Vista (I know it sucks) and IE and anything else on there that I wanted to keep. (basically MS Office and a picture editor).

My problem now is I cannot see the You Tube posts with IE but I can with Firefox. I tried a billion (at least) different settings on IE but still I don't see the you tubes in any posts here. I can access you tube and watch things there, just at this website with IE.

Any suggestions on what is causing that? I'm sure it's some obscure setting I missed.

[Crackpot]

You problem is obvious.....

It's called IE

[Scooter]

Did you upgrade to IE10? I ask because my computer was running IE9, and everything was going fine. Then a couple of days ago when I ran Windows Update I saw that upgrading to IE10 was listed as an "important" update, so I installed it. Began having all sorts of issues, including not being able to downlowd any type of document (Word, PDF, etc) either from my mail or from the web. I did a system restore to bring ti back to IE9 and everything is ok again. I suspect there are some bugs they haven't worked out yet and that a revised version of IE10 will be out in a while.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Did you upgrade to IE10? I ask because my computer was running IE9, and everything was going fine. Then a couple of days ago when I ran Windows Update I saw that upgrading to IE10 was listed as an "important" update, so I installed it. Began having all sorts of issues, including not being able to downlowd any type of document (Word, PDF, etc) either from my mail or from the web. I did a system restore to bring ti back to IE9 and everything is ok again. I suspect there are some bugs they haven't worked out yet and that a revised version of IE10 will be out in a while.

I forget what it updated too. I know I did an update on Vista which might have contained an update for IE. I have to check. Thanks

[Jarlaxle]

I suggest using Chrome instead of IE. Youll never go back!

[Econoline]

You problem is obvious.....

It's called IE

I've got to agree with CP and Jarl: if you want to keep IE on your computer to use as an emergency backup browser (hint: you'll probably never need to use it), sure, no problem...just install and use Chrome and/or Firefox for your everyday browsing needs and don't worry too much about what IE can or can't do.

[Gob]

Firefox user here...

[Lord Jim]

I think that Firefox, (even with all their endless gratuitous "upgrades"...I believe I'm now on "Firefox 13.0"..) is vastly superior to Chrome, (which is too "bare bones" and not at all intuitive...you have to hunt just to figure out how to bookmark a page) and head and shoulders above the spam laden, cumbersome, counter-intuitive, Internet Explorer, that I rejected when I first joined the Internet back in the mid 90's...

At that time, I took one look at Internet Explorer, and immediately downloaded and installed Netscape...

[oldr_n_wsr]

I miss Netscape. Is that still available?

[Crackpot]

I don't think so

[Jarlaxle]

I think that Firefox, (even with all their endless gratuitous "upgrades"...I believe I'm now on "Firefox 13.0"..) is vastly superior to Chrome, (which is too "bare bones" and not at all intuitive...you have to hunt just to figure out how to bookmark a page) and head and shoulders above the spam laden, cumbersome, counter-intuitive, Internet Explorer, that I rejected when I first joined the Internet back in the mid 90's...

At that time, I took one look at Internet Explorer, and immediately downloaded and installed Netscape...

Whaaaaaaaaaaat?! Bookmarking a page on Chrome is simple: click the star at the right side of the address bar, takes one second.