Money spend for AI used on shows...

**alhoon** · March 16, 2011, 07:07 PM

Originally Posted by C.I.F

"Some like comparing the IBM programmed, purpose built, chess and quiz answering, AI machines like Deeper Blue (The purpose built chess machine) and Watson (the computer purpose built to answer questions in a quiz show), with an AI programmed by a relatively small games company, with a fraction of IBM's resources and time.

The company working on "Watson" spends $6 billion a year on R&D. Also Watson has the following machine specs: "Watson is made up of 90 4-socket IBM Power 750 systems with 360 8-core POWER7 processors running at 3.55GHz with 16 GB of memory per server. The systems are connected together via 10 GbE networking."
How many of you have a machine like this at home? And how many are willing to pay the kind of money for a game that would give us $6billion to spend on improving our AI software? "

There is a company spending 6 billion$ on R&D for their AI, for a show?!? How much your military pays for R&D for the military drones that shoot on targets?

I'm just amazed at money that moves around. The private company that pays that money for a show, is private. But if that R&D takes so much money, what about the military research?
When spending money on such projects should be considered "too much cost" and the goverment should pull the plug?

The question of money for military research aside, If the AI for a show costs 6B$/Year how much the show's production costs? Does anyone watch these shows here?

**Big War Bird** · March 16, 2011, 07:33 PM

The quoted post says IBM spends 6 billion on research, not 6 billion on that specific project.

**alhoon** · March 16, 2011, 09:56 PM

OK, it understandable then.
Still, does anyone know what's the R&D for AI in the military? After all, they could just have parts of it made by IBM.

**Nevins** · March 17, 2011, 09:42 AM

Originally Posted by alhoon

OK, it understandable then.
Still, does anyone know what's the R&D for AI in the military? After all, they could just have parts of it made by IBM.

Well, I do not know if the DARPA numbers count stuff spent in contracting work out, but I find this for FY 2008.

“DARPA, the Pentagon’s mad science division, got a $324 million boost in the Defense Department’s new budget — a ten percent increase. Which means lots more cash for giant blimps, next-gen wireless networks, Mach 6 planes, shape-shifting drones, and improvised bomb-beaters. … But not everything in the DARPA budget got bumped up. The agency’s much-ballyhooed efforts at “Cognitive Computing” took at $30 million cut, to $145 million. Which could mean that even the Pentagon’s most wide-eyed visionaries see thinking machines are still far, far off in the distance.”