A super computer read “Harry Potter” and determined that Hermione is more assertive than Voldemort
Though the IBM super computer Watson’s intelligence is technically artificial, his latest findings feel pretty spot on. In case you’re not familiar, Watson is a computer system specifically designed to answer questions posed in natural language. Basically, he’s got a huge amount of information that he’s able to spew out in a way we can understand by only asking simple questions.
He first showed his impressive knowledge base in 2011 by defeating two reigning (human) Jeopardy! champions, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. Since then, Watson’s massive and interactive database has been used for asking all sorts of interesting questions. His latest findings revolve around the world of Harry Potter and are magical.
Well, not technically “magical.” Technically, they’re analysis based on a functioning high-level of artificial intelligence. But since Watson is clearly smarter than us and he’s talking about Harry Potter, it only seems appropriate to call them magical.
According Tech insider, IBM fed Watson all the Harry Potter he could handle, by having him analyze both the books and their subsequent screenplays. They had Watson evaluate the text for the main differences between the books and screenplays. But more interestingly, they used the Big Five test (a common psychological ranking system) to analyze the different characters personalities based on the traits they exhibit in each particular text.
Watson was able to pick up on some surprisingly keen results. Our favorite of which was based on the character played by his just-as-intelligent-human counterpart, Emma Watson. I’m talking, of course, about the lovable Hermione Granger.
Watson said that Hermione actually showed a significantly more assertive personality throughout the series than the infamously evil Voldemort, who literally takes down everyone who gets in the way of his plans. But more interestingly, she got the highest score on Watson’s morality assessment. Meaning she held strong and true to her convictions of what was right and wrong and had no fear in consistently acting upon those beliefs.
Which, let’s be honest, we basically already knew about her. It’s one of the reasons we loved her so much.
Many of Watson’s findings are fascinating. Like the fact that both Harry and Voldemort rank high in anger, which explains in many ways why they’re so evenly matched. But Voldemort exhibits a lot more neuroticism, which could explain why his anger becomes evil so easily.
And he also showed that Neville Longbottom and Voldemort actually share a lot of similar personality traits.
There are lots of fun and interesting results in Watson’s analysis. So make Hermione proud and read about all of them for yourself!
