Lex Fridman PodcastDavid Ferrucci: IBM Watson, Jeopardy & Deep Conversations with AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #44
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
155 min read · 30,552 words- 0:00 – 1:06
Introduction
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with David Ferrucci. He led the team that built Watson, the IBM question-and-answering system that beat the top humans in the world at the game of Jeopardy. From spending a couple of hours with David, I saw a genuine passion, not only for abstract understanding of intelligence, but for engineering it to solve real-world problems under real-world deadlines and resource constraints. Where science meets engineering is where brilliant, simple ingenuity emerges. People who work at joining the two have a lot of wisdom earned through failures and eventual success. David is also the founder, CEO, and chief scientist of Elemental Cognition, a company working to engineer AI systems that understand the world the way people do. This is the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it five stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman, spelled F-R-I-D-M-A-N. And now, here's my conversation with David Ferrucci.
- 1:06 – 8:03
Biological vs computer systems
- LFLex Fridman
Your undergrad was in biology with a- with an eye toward medical school before you went on for the PhD in computer science. So let me ask you an easy question. What is the difference between biological systems and computer systems? In your... when you sit back, look at the stars, and think philosophically.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
I often wonder, I often wonder whether or not there is a- a substantive difference. I mean, I think the thing that got me into computer science and into artificial intelligence was exactly this presupposition that, uh, if we can get machines to think, or I should say this question, this philosophical question, if we can get machines to think, to understand, to process information the way do- we do, so if we can describe a procedure or describe a process, even if that process were the intelligence process itself, then what would be the difference? So, um, from a philosophical standpoint, I'm not sure I'm convinced that there- there- there is. I mean, you can go in the direction of spirituality or you can go in the direction of a soul, but in terms of, you know, what we can- what we can experience, uh, from an intellectual and physical perspective, I'm not sure there is. Clearly, there implement- there- there are different implementations. But if you were to say, as a biological information, processing system fundamentally more capable than one we might be able to build out of silicon or- or some other, uh, substrate, uh, I don't- I don't know that there is.
- LFLex Fridman
How distant do you think is the biological implementation? So fundamentally, they may have the same capabilities, but is it, um, really a far mystery where a huge number of breakthroughs are needed to be able to understand it? Or is it something that, for the most part, in the important aspects, echoes of the same kind of characteristics?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, uh, so, you know, your question presupposes that there's this goal to recreate, you know, what we perceive as biological intelligence. I'm not- I'm not sure that's the- I'm not sure that- that's how I would state the goal. I mean, I think that studying-
- LFLex Fridman
What is the goal?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Good. So I think there are a few goals. I think that understanding the human brain and how it works is important for us to be able to diagnose and treat issues, for us to understand our own strengths and weaknesses, um, both intellectual, psychological, and physical. So neuroscience and understanding the brain from that perspective has a ne- there's a clear, clear goal there. From the perspective of saying I want to m- I want to- I want to mimic human intelligence, that one's a little bit more interesting. Human intelligence certainly has, um, a lot of things we envy. It's also got a lot of problems too. So I think we're capable of sort of stepping back and saying, "What do we want out of it? Uh, what do we want out of an intelligence? Uh, how do we want to communicate with that intelligence? How do we want it to behave? How do we want it to perform?" Now, of course, it's- it's- it's somewhat of an interesting argument because I'm sitting here as a human with a biological brain and I'm critiquing the strengths and weaknesses of human intelligence and saying that we have the capacity to s- the capacity to step back and say, "Gee, what do- what is intelligence and what do we really want out of it?" And that even- in and of itself suggests that human intelligence is something quite enviable, that it could- it- you know, it can- it can- it can, um, introspect that- it can introspect that way.
- LFLex Fridman
And the flaws, you mentioned the flaws. That humans have flaws.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Yeah. But I think- I think that flaws that human intelligence has is ex- extremely, um, prejudicial and biased in the way it draws many inferences.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think those are... Sorry to interrupt. Do you think those are features or are those bugs? Do you think the- the prejudice, the forgetfulness, the fear... What other flaws? List them all. What? Love? Maybe that's a flaw. Do you think those are all things that can be get- gotten- get in the way of intelligence or the essential components of intelligence?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Well, again, it's- i- if you go back and you define intelligence as being able to sort of accuracy- accurately, precisely, rigorously reason, develop answers, and justify those answers in an objective way, yeah, then human intelligence has these flaws in that it tends to be more influenced by some of the things you said.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Uh, and it's- and it's largely an inductive process, meaning it takes past data, uses that to predict the future.... very advantageous in some cases, but fundamentally biased and prejudicial in other cases, 'cause it's gonna be strongly influenced by its priors, whether they're f- whether they're right or wrong for some, you know, objective reasoning perspective. You're gonna favor them because that's, those are the decisions or those are the paths that succeeded in the past. And I think that mode of intelligence makes a lot of sense for, um, when your primary goal is to act quickly and s- and, and survive and make fast decisions. And I think those create problems, uh, when you wanna think more deeply and make more objective and reasoned decisions. Of course, humans capable of doing both.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
They do sort of one more naturally than they do the other, but they're capable of doing both.
- LFLex Fridman
You's saying they do the one that responds quickly and it more naturally?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
'Cause that's the thing we kinda need to not be eaten by, uh, the p- the predators-
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Well-
- LFLex Fridman
... in the world.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... for example, but I mean, but, uh, then we, we've, we've learned to reason, uh, through logic. We've developed science. We've trained people to do that. I think that's harder for the individual to do. Uh, I think it requires training and, you know, and, and, and teaching. I think we are... human mind is cer- certainly is capable of it, but we find it more difficult. And then there are other weaknesses, if you will, as you mentioned earlier, just memory capacity and, and, um, how many chains of inference can you actually, um, go through without, like, losing your way, so just focus and...
- LFLex Fridman
S- so the way you think about intelligence, and we're really sort of floating in this philosophical s- slightly space, but I think you're, like, the perfect person to talk about this because, uh, we'll get to Jeopardy! and beyond, th- that's like an incredible, one of the most incredible accomplishments in AI, in the history of AI, but hence, the philosophical discussion.
- 8:03 – 31:49
What is intelligence?
- LFLex Fridman
So let me ask, you've kind of alluded to it, but let me ask again, what is intelligence underlying the discussions we'll have with, with Jeopardy! and beyond, how do you think about intelligence? Is it a sufficiently complicated problem, being able to reason your way through solving that problem? Is that kinda how you think about what it means to be intelligent?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
So I, I think of intelligence two, primarily two ways. One is the ability to predict. So in other words, if I have a problem, what's gonna... can I predict what's gonna happen next? Whether it's to, you know, predict the answer of a question or to say, "Look, I'm looking at all the market dynamics and I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen next," or you're in a, in a room and somebody walks in and you're gonna predict what they're gonna do next or what they're gonna say next.
- LFLex Fridman
So in a, in a highly dynamic environment full of uncertainty, be able to-
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Lots of, lot-
- LFLex Fridman
... predict.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... you know, the more-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... the more variables, the more complex, the more possibilities, the more complex. But can I take a small amount of prior data and learn the pattern and then predict what's gonna happen next accurately and consistently? That's a f- that's certainly a form of intelligence.
- LFLex Fridman
W- what do you need for that, by the way? You need to have an understanding of the way the world works in order to be able to unroll it into the future, right? Like, w- what do you think-
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Well-
- LFLex Fridman
... is needed to predict?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... depends what you mean by understanding. I, I, I, I, I need to be able to find that function. This is very much like what-
- LFLex Fridman
It's a function.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... deep learning does, machine learning does, is if you give me enough prior data and you tell me what the output variable is that matters, I'm gonna sit there and be able to predict it. And if I can predicu- predict it accurately so that I can get it right more often than not, I'm smart. If I can do that with less data (laughs) and less training time, I'm even smarter. If I can figure out what's even worth predicting, (laughs) um, I'm smarter, meaning I'm at... I'm, I'm figuring out what path is gonna get me toward a goal.
- LFLex Fridman
What about picking a goal? Sorry to interrupt again.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
That's... Well, that's the interesting about picking a goal, sort of an interesting thing, and I think that's where you bring in what are you pre-programmed to do? We talk about humans and, well, humans are pre-programmed to survive. So sort of their primary, you know, driving goal, what do they have to do to do that? And that, that could be very complex, right? So it's not just, it's not just figuring out that you need to run away from the ferocious tiger, but we survive in s- a social context, as an example. So understanding the subtleties of social dynamics becomes something that's important for surviving, finding a mate, reproducing, right? So we're continually challenged with complex sets of variables, complex constraints, rules if you will, that we, we... or patterns, and we learn how to find the functions and predict the things, in other words, represent those patterns efficiently, and be able to predict what's gonna happen, and that's a form of intelligence. That doesn't really recoi- that doesn't really require anything specific other than the (laughs) ability to find that function and, and predict that right answer. It's certainly a form of intelligence. But then when we, we, when we say, "Well, do we understand each other?" In other words, um, do... would you perceive me as, as intelligent beyond that ability to predict? So now I can predict, but I can't really articulate h- how I'm going through that process, what my underlying theory is for predicting, and I can't get you to understand what I'm doing so that you can follow... you can figure out how to do this yourself if you hadn't r- if you did not have, for example, the right pattern-matching machinery that I did. And now we ha- potentially have this breakdown where, in effect, I'm intelligent, but I'm sort of an alien intelligence relative to, to you.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) You're intelligent, but nobody knows about it.... uh, or the-
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Well, I can see-
- LFLex Fridman
... or I can't-
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... I can see the, I can see the output, like-
- LFLex Fridman
So, so you're saying, let's sort of separate the two things. One is you explaining why you were able to predict the future and, and, uh, and the second is me being able to, like, impressing me that you're intelligent, me being able to know that you successfully predicted the future. Do you think that's...
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Well, it's not impressing you that I'm intelligent. In other words, you may be convinced that I'm intelligent in some form.
- LFLex Fridman
So how, what would convince-
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Because of my ability to predict.
- LFLex Fridman
So I would look at the metrics.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
When you can, I just say, "Wow."
- LFLex Fridman
"Wow."
- DFDavid Ferrucci
"You're right all, you're, you're, you're right more times than I am. You're doing something interesting." That's a form of, that's a form of intelligence. But then what happens is, if I say, "How are you doing that?" and you can't communicate with me, and you can't describe that to me, now I may lab- label you a savant. I may, I may say, "Well, you're doing something weird and it's, and it's just not very interesting to me, because you and I can't really communicate." And, and so now the, the, so this is interesting, right? Because now this is, you're in this weird place where for you to be recognized as intelligent the way I'm intelligent-
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... then you and I sort of have to be able to communicate. And then my, we start to understand each other, and then my respect and my, my appreciation, my ability to relate to you starts to change. So now you're not an alien intelligence anymore. You're, you're a human intelligence now, because you c- you and I can communicate. And so I think when we look at, when we look at a- when we look at animals, for example, animals can do things we can't quite comprehend. We don't quite know how they do them, but they can't really communicate with us. They can't put what they're going through in our terms, and so we think of them as sort of, "Well, they're these alien intelligences and they're not really worth necessarily what we're worth." We don't treat them the same way as a result of that. But it's, it's hard because who knows what, what, you know, what's going on.
- 31:49 – 52:02
Knowledge frameworks
- DFDavid Ferrucci
share that stuff.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think that shared knowledge... If, if, if we can maybe escape the hardware question, how much is encoded in the hardware? Just the shared knowledge and the software, the, the history, the many centuries of wars and so on that, that came to today. That shared knowledge. Uh, how hard is it to encode? And did you have a hope? Can you speak to how hard is it to encode that knowledge systematically in a way that could be used by a computer?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
So I think it is possible to learn to, for a machine, to program a machine to acquire that knowledge with a similar foundation. In other words, an inter- a similar interpretative, interpretative foundation for processing that knowledge.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, what do you mean by that? How-
- DFDavid Ferrucci
So in other, in other words-
- LFLex Fridman
... foundation?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... we view the world in a particular way. And so, in other words, we, we have a, if you will, as humans, we have a framework for interpreting the world around us.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
So we have multiple frameworks for interpreting the world around us. But, uh, if you're interpreting, for example, socio-political interactions, you're thinking about, well, there's people, there's collections and groups of people. They have goals. Goals largely built around survival and quality of life.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
There are e- there are fundamental economics around scarcity of resources. And when, when humans come and start interpreting a situation like that, because you brought, you brought up, like, historical events. They start interpreting situations like that. They apply a lot of this, a lot of this, this fundamental framework for interpreting that. Well, who are the people? What were their goals? What resources did they have? How much power or influence did they have over the other... Like, just fundamental-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... substrate, if you will, for interpreting and reasoning about that. So I think it is possible to imbue a computer with that, that stuff that humans, like, take for granted when they go and, and, and sit down and try to interpret things. And then, and then with that, with that foundation, they acquire, they start acquiring the details, the specifics in any given situation, are then able to interpret it with regard to that framework. And then given that interpretation, they can do what? They can predict. But not only can they predict. They can predict now with an explanation that can be given in those terms, in the terms of that underlying framework that most humans share.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Now, you could find humans that come and interpret events very differently than other humans, because they're, like, using a, a different s- different framework. You know, the movie Matrix comes to mind, where, you know, they decided that humans were really just batteries, and that's how they (laughs) interpreted the value of humans-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... um, as a source of electrical energy. So but, um, but I think that, you know, for the most part, we, we, we have a way of, of interpreting the events or at least social events around us, because we have this shared framework. It comes from, again, the fact that we're, we're similar beings that have similar goals, similar emotions, and we as... We can make sense out of these. These frameworks make sense to us.
- LFLex Fridman
So how much knowledge is there, do you think? So it's... You said it's possible.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Well, there's always a tremendous amount of detailed knowledge in the world. There are, you know. You can imagine, you know, effectively infinite number of unique situations and unique, unique configurations of these things. But the, the knowledge that you need, w- what I refer to as, like, the frameworks, for... You need for interpreting them, I don't think. I think that's, those are finite. Um-
- LFLex Fridman
You think the frameworks are more important than the bulk of the knowl- so, like, framing
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Yeah. ... describes the- Because what the frameworks do is they give you now the ability to interpret and reason, and to interpret and reason and to interpret and reason over the specifics in ways that other humans would understand.
- LFLex Fridman
What about the specifics? You know-
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Well, you acquire the specifics by reading and by talking to other people.
- LFLex Fridman
So I'm mostly actually just even... If we can focus on even the beginning, the common sense stuff, the stuff that doesn't even require reading or it almost s- requires playing around with the world or something. Just being able to sort of manipulate objects, drink w- water and so on.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
All of that. Every time we try to do that kind of thing in robotics or AI, it seems to be like an onion. (laughs) You seem to realize how much knowledge is really required to perform even some of these basic tasks. Do you have that sense as well? And if so, how do we get all those details? Are they written down somewhere? Do they have to be learned through experience?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
So I think when, like if you're talking about sort of the physics, the basic physics around us, for example, acquiring information about... Acquiring how that works, um, yeah, man, I think that, I think there's a combination of things going... I think there's a combination of things going on. I think there is like fundamental pattern matching, like what we were talking about before, where you see enough examples, enough data about something, you just start assuming that. And with similar input, I'm gonna predict similar outputs. You don't, can't necessarily explain it at all. Um, you may learn very quickly that when you let something go, it falls to the ground.
- LFLex Fridman
That's a, that's a, such a-
- DFDavid Ferrucci
But you can't necessarily explain that.
- LFLex Fridman
But that's such a deep idea, that if you let something go, like the idea of gravity.
- 52:02 – 1:24:21
IBM Watson winning Jeopardy
- LFLex Fridman
So, one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of AI is, um, Watson competing against Je- uh, in- in a game of Jeopardy against humans, and you were a lead in that, a crit- a critical part of that. So, let's start at the very basics. What is the game of Jeopardy? The game for us humans, human versus human.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Right. So it's to take a question and answer it. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Um, the game of Jeopardy! Well-
- LFLex Fridman
It's just the opposite.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... actually, it's- actually-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) It's the opposite.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Well, well, no, but it's not, right?
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
(laughs) It's like- it's really not. It's really-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... it's really to get a question and answer, but it's- it's what we call a factoid question. So this notion of like it's- it really relates to some fact that every- few people would argue whether the facts are true or not. In fact, most people would. And Jeopardy! kind of counts on the idea that these- these statements have factual answers. And, um, and the idea is to, first of all, determine whether or not you know the answer, which is sort of an interesting twist.
- LFLex Fridman
So, first of all, understand the question, right?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
You have to understand the question. What is it asking? And that's a good point because the questions are not asked directly, right? They're-
- LFLex Fridman
They're all like... The way the questions are asked is non-linear. It's like, uh, it's a little bit witty. It's a little bit playful sometimes. It's, uh, it's a little bit tricky.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Yeah, they're asked in- in exactly numerous witty, tricky ways.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
Uh, exactly what they're asking is not obvious. It takes- it takes inexperienced humans a while to go, "What is it even asking?"
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
And it's sort of an interesting realization that you have when somebody says, "Oh, what's the... Jeopardy! is a question answering show," and then he's like, "Oh, like I know a lot," and then you read it and you're- you're still trying to process the question, and the champions have answered and moved on. They're three like-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Yeah.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... they're three questions ahead by the (laughs) by the time you figured out what the question even meant. So, there's- there's definitely an ability there to just parse out what the question even is.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
So, that was certainly challenging. It's interesting historically though, if you look back at the Jeopardy games much earlier, you know-
- LFLex Fridman
Like 60s, 70s, that kind of thing?
- DFDavid Ferrucci
... early games, the questions were much more direct. They weren't quite like that. They got sort of more and more interesting. The way they asked them that sort of got more and more interesting and subtle and nuanced and humorous and witty over time which really required the human to kind of make the right connections in figuring out what the question was even asking. So yeah, you have to figure out what the question's even asking, then you have to determine whether or not you think you know the answer, and because you have to buzz in really quickly, you still have to make that determination, uh, as quickly as you possibly can. In other words, y- you lose the opportunity to buzz in. You may-
- LFLex Fridman
Even before you really know if you know the answer.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
I think a lo- I think a lot of humans will- will assume. They'll- they'll- they'll look at- they'll look at it- they're processed very superficially. In other words, what's the topic? What are some keywords? And just say, "Do I know this area or not?" before they actually know the answer.... then they'll buzz in and, then they'll buzz in and think about it. So it's interesting what humans do. Now, some people who know all things, like Ken Jennings or something, or the more recent big Jeopardy! player, um, they, I mean they'll just buzz in. They'll just assume they know all of Jeopardy! and they'll just buzz in.
- LFLex Fridman
Hmm.
- DFDavid Ferrucci
You know, Watson, interestingly, didn't even come close to knowing all of Jeopardy!, right? Wa- Watson really-
Episode duration: 2:24:31
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