interesting, but ...
Informative article. I'd just quibble with the idea that it's not a supercomputer and it's not doing search. As you say, " We human types are ambiguous. We have nearly endless ways to say the same thing. Our statements and questions are unstructured, and must be interpreted through the context in which they’re made."
To the majority of English speakers, a system that can beat humans is "super." As wikipedia says, the definition of super is rather fluid. I believe your point is that Watson is not a demonstration of raw processing power, which is a defining supercomputer trait. But if I may speak as a member of the great unwashed masses, Watson demonstrated a power not previously seen so I think one could argue that it expands the definition of supercomputer.
As for search, Watson goes into a database and returns an answer. I can't fault journalists for considering that search. It's taken search to a new level.
Again, the article was informative. My point, if I have one, is that language is consensus of meaning. To those of us without engineering degrees, this was super and it was search.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
