In 1947, Boris Katz was born in Moldova, which was part of the Soviet Union. He would go on to graduate from Moscow State University, where he learned about computers, and then left the country to the United States (with the assistance of Senator Edward Kennedy).
He wasted little time with the opportunity. Besides writing more than 80 technical publications and receiving two US patents, he created the START system that allowed for sophisticated NLP capabilities. It was actually the basis for the first Q&A site on the Web in 1993. Yes, this was the forerunner to breakout companies like Yahoo! and Google.
Boris’s innovations were also critical for IBM’s Watson, which is now at the core of the company’s AI efforts. This computer, in 2011, would shock the world when it beat two of the all-time champions of the popular game show Jeopardy!
Despite all the progress with NLP, Boris is not satisfied. He believes we are still in the early stages and lots more must be done to get true value. In an interview with the MIT Technology Review, he said: “But on the other hand, these programs [like Siri and Alexa] are so incredibly stupid. So there’s a feeling of being proud and being almost embarrassed. You launch something that people feel is intelligent, but it’s not even close.”34
This is not to imply he’s a pessimist. However, he still thinks there needs to be a rethinking of NLP if it is to get to the point of “real intelligence.” To this end, he believes researchers must look beyond pure computer science to broad areas like neuroscience, cognitive science, and psychology. He also thinks NLP systems must do a much better job of understanding the actions in the real world.
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