That essay focuses on social science, but I think it's still relevant here. Experts in the area did not think they could do this, and even the people involved weren't sure. It's easy to dismiss this as "yeah, it's just a big search engine" once you already know it's been done. Besides not accurately characterizing the approach Watson takes, that sentiment misses the fact that this was an open question.
Paradoxically, people would probably be more impressed if Watson did worse and the game was more competitive. It's like watching an NBA team play a high school team. The NBA team is so good that it looks easy despite the fact that they're that good because of decades of practice.
(Disclaimer: I work at IBM Research, and have associated biases.)
That essay focuses on social science, but I think it's still relevant here. Experts in the area did not think they could do this, and even the people involved weren't sure. It's easy to dismiss this as "yeah, it's just a big search engine" once you already know it's been done. Besides not accurately characterizing the approach Watson takes, that sentiment misses the fact that this was an open question.
Paradoxically, people would probably be more impressed if Watson did worse and the game was more competitive. It's like watching an NBA team play a high school team. The NBA team is so good that it looks easy despite the fact that they're that good because of decades of practice.
(Disclaimer: I work at IBM Research, and have associated biases.)