Using The Semantic Web To Answer Questions

Linked Data in Watson: Using Linked Data as Evidence for Natural Language Processing Chris Welty IBM Research A team at IBM Research is working to build Watson, a computing system that can understand and answer complex questions with enough precision and speed to compete against the best human quiz show competitors http://www.research.ibm.com/deepqa/ As with the previous AI grand challenge attempted at IBM Research, (playing chess at a grand master level) the principle challenges for machines to achieve expert performance are fundamentally different than for people. For Watson, the challenge is not acquiring enough knowledge to answer questions, but understanding the questions well enough to exploit the knowledge it has. In this talk I will discuss the rather non-obvious role that linked open data has played in developing Watson. Please be advised that we will meet at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston for this special event which is kindly hosted by the Semantic Web Summit conference. Bio Chris Welty is a Research Scientist at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York. His principal area of research is Knowledge Representation, specifically ontologies and the semantic web, and he spends most of his time applying this technology to Natural Language Question Answering as a member of the DeepQA/Watson team. He is best known as a co-developer of the OntoClean methodology with Nicola Guarino, and as the co-chair of the W3C RIF working group. The event is kindly sponsored by the Semantic Web Summit 2010, the premier Semantic Web business conference. The event will be free to attend but you can in addition use our SWNY coupon code to receive a special 15% discount on a full conference ticket. Attendee List (winner of the complementary Semantic Web Summit full conference ticket will be drawn from the list) Marco Neumann Chris Welty Marcus Trevisani Marc Shifflett Ashkhen Pogosyan Marc Donatiello Vasko Yordanov Veronika Zielinska Peter Dixon-Moses

Location Hynes Convention Center 900 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02115 (617) 954-2000 Date November 16, 2010 Time 6pm