full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Ken Jennings: Watson, Jeopardy and me, the obsolete know-it-all

Unscramble the Blue Letters

If you watch the news, you'll see oiclasnalcoy — and I see this all the time — that pharmacists now, there's a machine that can fill prescriptions automatically without actually needing a human pharmacist. And a lot of law firms are getting rid of paralegals because there's software that can sum up case laws and legal briefs and decisions. You don't need human assistants for that anymroe. I read the other day about a program where you feed it a box score from a baseball or ftbaooll game and it sipts out a news article as if a hmuan had watched the game and was cmnontemig on it. And obviously these new technologies can't do as cleevr or creative a job as the humans they're replacing, but they're faster, and cluaicrly, they're much, much cheaper. So it makes me wonder what the economic effects of this might be. I've read economists saying that, as a result of these new technologies, we'll enter a new golden age of leisure when we'll all have time for the things we really love because all these onerous tsaks will be taken over by Watson and his dtiigal brethren. I've haerd other people say quite the opposite, that this is yet another tier of the mlidde class that's having the thing they can do taken away from them by a new technology and that this is actually something ominous, something that we should worry about.

Open Cloze

If you watch the news, you'll see ____________ — and I see this all the time — that pharmacists now, there's a machine that can fill prescriptions automatically without actually needing a human pharmacist. And a lot of law firms are getting rid of paralegals because there's software that can sum up case laws and legal briefs and decisions. You don't need human assistants for that _______. I read the other day about a program where you feed it a box score from a baseball or ________ game and it _____ out a news article as if a _____ had watched the game and was __________ on it. And obviously these new technologies can't do as ______ or creative a job as the humans they're replacing, but they're faster, and _________, they're much, much cheaper. So it makes me wonder what the economic effects of this might be. I've read economists saying that, as a result of these new technologies, we'll enter a new golden age of leisure when we'll all have time for the things we really love because all these onerous _____ will be taken over by Watson and his _______ brethren. I've _____ other people say quite the opposite, that this is yet another tier of the ______ class that's having the thing they can do taken away from them by a new technology and that this is actually something ominous, something that we should worry about.

Solution

  1. digital
  2. heard
  3. tasks
  4. commenting
  5. football
  6. crucially
  7. middle
  8. anymore
  9. occasionally
  10. human
  11. spits
  12. clever

Original Text

If you watch the news, you'll see occasionally — and I see this all the time — that pharmacists now, there's a machine that can fill prescriptions automatically without actually needing a human pharmacist. And a lot of law firms are getting rid of paralegals because there's software that can sum up case laws and legal briefs and decisions. You don't need human assistants for that anymore. I read the other day about a program where you feed it a box score from a baseball or football game and it spits out a news article as if a human had watched the game and was commenting on it. And obviously these new technologies can't do as clever or creative a job as the humans they're replacing, but they're faster, and crucially, they're much, much cheaper. So it makes me wonder what the economic effects of this might be. I've read economists saying that, as a result of these new technologies, we'll enter a new golden age of leisure when we'll all have time for the things we really love because all these onerous tasks will be taken over by Watson and his digital brethren. I've heard other people say quite the opposite, that this is yet another tier of the middle class that's having the thing they can do taken away from them by a new technology and that this is actually something ominous, something that we should worry about.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
game shows 4
real life 3
show contestant 2
scatter chart 2
line coming 2
golden age 2
human information 2

Important Words

  1. age
  2. anymore
  3. article
  4. assistants
  5. automatically
  6. baseball
  7. box
  8. brethren
  9. briefs
  10. case
  11. cheaper
  12. class
  13. clever
  14. commenting
  15. creative
  16. crucially
  17. day
  18. decisions
  19. digital
  20. economic
  21. economists
  22. effects
  23. enter
  24. faster
  25. feed
  26. fill
  27. firms
  28. football
  29. game
  30. golden
  31. heard
  32. human
  33. humans
  34. job
  35. law
  36. laws
  37. legal
  38. leisure
  39. lot
  40. love
  41. machine
  42. middle
  43. needing
  44. news
  45. occasionally
  46. ominous
  47. onerous
  48. paralegals
  49. people
  50. pharmacist
  51. pharmacists
  52. prescriptions
  53. program
  54. read
  55. replacing
  56. result
  57. rid
  58. score
  59. software
  60. spits
  61. sum
  62. tasks
  63. technologies
  64. technology
  65. tier
  66. time
  67. watch
  68. watched
  69. watson
  70. worry