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How Jeopardy-Winning Computers Will One Day Improve Games
A recent interview with Bungie's engineering lead, Chris Butcher, sheds light on how current computing innovations will revolutionize our interactions with computers -- and games.
Kotaku posted an interesting interview this afternoon with the man behind Bungie's upcoming technology work. Chris Butcher had some intriguing things to say about the way that supercomputer Watson managed to win Jeopardy a few days back. And no, he doesn't think it's the first step to the enslavement of humanity.
"In fact Watson is the most recent example of humanity's empowerment by technology," Butcher says. "The scientists at IBM have created a great suite of tools for humans to use. By attaching a question-answering engine to a huge pattern-matching information database, they've demonstrated a proof of concept for machines that will be ubiquitous in our lives in ten years' time. Currently, Watson's databases are custom formatted and stored locally. But as these algorithms get utilized more widely for distributed information storage, we'll see the emergence of the Semantic Web where anyone can ask these questions of the entire Internet."
That same technology, he says, will eventually enter the video game space as well, though it will take a long time to create entertainment that fully takes advantage of the technology.
The whole interview is a fascinating glimpse of what one tech expert sees in our future. Make sure to check it out at the source linked above.
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