IBM Super Computer (Watson) Beats Jeopardy Champion – Science Fact

The machines are taking over . . . albeit slowly.  First chess and now Jeopardy.  How does a computer come up with answers to pop culture trivia questions?  Beats me – but it’s just as scary as it is impressive.

First of all – it’ an IBM.  Second of all – it beat Ken Jennings.  You know, that guy who won like 80 rounds of Jeopardy in a row.

Back in ’97 a super computer beat Gary Kasparov, the greatest living chess player.  But this computer, snarkily named, “Watson” is light years ahead of it’s chess playing predecessor.

Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, was designed instead to understand the more complex domain of words, language and human knowledge.

To emulate the human mind, and make it competitive on the TV quiz show, Watson was stuffed with millions of documents—including dictionaries, anthologies and the World Book Encyclopedia. After reading a clue, Watson mines the database, poring over 200 million pages of content in less than three seconds. Researchers developed algorithms to measure Watson’s level of confidence in an answer in order to decide whether it should hit the “Jeopardy!” buzzer.

Whoa.

So, the stage was set – Jennings  chose a category called “Chicks Dig Me.”

The question: “Kathleen Kenyon’s excavation of this city mentioned in Joshua shows that the walls had been repaired 17 times.”

“What is Jericho?” answered Watson correctly in a simulated masculine voice.  Apparently Watson, on average, answered four questions correctly to the human’s one.  When all was said and done – Watson had racked up $4,400 and Jennings had $3,400.

I asked Watson how it felt about beating his human competitor and if he felt as if he was truly superior to humans – he answered, “You have nothing to worry about, I think you’ve improved a great deal . . . Dave”

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Source: Wall Street Journal