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05 Mar 2011 18:50

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Tech: Rock Paper Scissors: Can you top the New York Times’ robot?

  • Tied to that post we made about lawyers, the New York Times has a man-vs.-machine Rock Paper Scissors game up on their site. We’re evenly matched, as you can tell. And this was on the “hard” mode, by the way. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Mar 2011 13:28

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Tech, U.S.: Really smart computers replacing rooms full of lawyers

  • You tend to split a lot fewer infinitives when you think the FBI might be reading your mail.
  • Cataphora Chief Technology Officer Steve Roberts • Explaining the benefit of his company’s software, which can intelligently parse phrases and figure out when someone is changing their tone (presumably because they have something to hide). This is useful in law cases, particularly ones with a ton of documents – you know, the kind that once required armies of lawyers to do the dirty work. They’re just one of the companies who work in this pretty neat field, and their accuracy rate is actually way better than the people the machines are replacing. “Think about how much money had been spent to be slightly better than a coin toss,” said Bill Herr, a former chemical company lawyer who once herded lawyers in rooms to dig through documents en masse. Like cats. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Mar 2011 15:03

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Culture: Rep. Rush Holt, D-NJ, beats back robotic dominion for another day

  • Holt wins the battle, Watson wins the war: A big humankind hats-off to Representative Rush Holt, who took on Jeopardy mecha-brain Watson in a faux-show in DC yesterday evening. While the contest pitted Watson against successive members of Congress, and those who went after Holt were trounced sufficiently to secure the win for Watson, Holt himself bested the computer by $2,400. Holt was a five-time Jeopardy winner nearly 35 years ago, and serves in the House as a Democrat from New Jersey. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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