COSC 89.11 Cognitive Computing with Watson
Building a computer program capable of answering questions with human-level competence has been one of the grand challenges of Artificial Intelligence. IBM’s Watson system has achieved remarkable results. This class will explore the AI methods used in Watson. Topics include: natural language processing, knowledge representation, automated reasoning, machine learning, and information retrieval. Students will work in teams to develop applications that use Watson as a Cloud Service in some novel way. This class will be one of few in the world to use Watson, helping to shape the future of “Cognitive Computing.”
The class will focus on projects and group work that culminates in building a novel application for question answering. Student teams will benefit from drawing on experience from various other classes, including data mining, information retrieval, natural-language processing, mobile computing and entrepreneurship.
Understanding the strengths and limitations of current question-answering technology will be key to a successful application. We will read and discuss research publications on various aspects of the technology, primarily focused on the Watson system.