IBM's Watson - first chess now Jeopardy

[Jo...@gooduniverse.us]

Hello Everyone,

I'm curious regarding Watson's technology. From Wikipedia I gather it
is rule-based and has machine learning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(artificial_intelligence_software)

The article mentions natural language processing, information
retrieval, knowledge representation and reasoning, and then mentions
machine learning.

How much learning is needed for a category such as the Bible (an
actual Jeopardy category or at least used to be)?

Once the "who", "where", and "when" parts of the Bible's books are
stored how much learning needs to be done?

I believe for this knowledge domain, once it is codified and recorded
there is no learning to be done. Further, I am of the evolving
opinion that many domains are akin to this but would dearly love to
hear the thoughts of others here why this is an overly-simplistic
world view.

Thanks,

John Schuster

[* Peter Bock]

Hi all:

I think John's right, if all they intend to extract is factual answers
to questions. However, perhaps they intend to include analysis, such
as: "The text is unclear and self-contradictory on the issue you
raise. I [Watson] have no idea how to resolve this problem. Do you
have any ideas?"

And I think this problem would occur very often, which is clearly why
Biblical Scholars spend so much time discussing the philosophic issues
encountered in the Testament(s).

Of course, I can only assume that Watson's reasoning power will be
applied to the original language(s) of the Testaments, including
Aramaic and Hebrew. Semantics certinaly can get lost in translation.

We'll see. (See? We're not really going to "see"!) :-)

Peter

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On Dec 16, 3:06 pm, "J...@gooduniverse.us" <J...@gooduniverse.us>
wrote:

[* Peter Bock]

Folks:

Biblical hermeneutics, when performed by serious, academic scholars,
is one of the most complex disciplines in academia. E.g. in one sense,
the stories and images of the Bible are our "fate," like it or not.
They form the "lens" through which we interpret the world and have had
long lasting effects that even sophisticated modern philosophers have
failed to comprehend. Biblical narratives and symbols combine
empirical claims with moral claims in complex ways that have an
interpretation history which is intricate in and of itself. Thus, in
my estimation the past Jeopardy category of the Bible is a product of
our inherited "lens," and in one way at least, is an extension of the
16th century view that the Bible is inerrant and as factual as
science. Hence "who, what, where, when" was and remains for many the
totality of the truth of the category. Any "fact" and rule-based
system would satisfy this simplistic and idiotic view of the Bible.
But, in "fact" such an approach would yield a great deal of untruth.

Peter is correct in asserting that analysis is the crucial element
here. Form Criticism, Redaction Criticism, etc. etc.( ad nauseum) are
just some of the complications, let alone the semantic vagueness of
the original languages. One can catch a glimpse of this complexity in
the question of the "Historical Jesus" versus the "Christ of Faith,"
for example. There are four somewhat different views of who Jesus was
and what he said and where and when, etc. in the Gospels themselves.
Any serious student of the Bible would have to engage in higher
criticism in order to even approach the formulation of the issues at
stake. And any serious academic scholar can confound to pieces anyone
naive enough to assume that Jeopardy "experts" can give us the
"answers" to the "who, what, when and where" questions. Only by
limiting the "answer" to something specific enough to produce
agreement of scholars, like "where, in Luke, did Jesus say 'woe unto
you who are rich...?' could there be a "factual" answer. Asking the
further question "why does this statement only appear in Luke's
account of the Sermon on the Mount?" would mean that you are really
THINKING, not just playing jeopardy.

Michael LaChat
Professor Emeritus
The Methodist Theological School