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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110113/ap_on_hi_te/us_man_vs_machine

Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter will face off against a computer that fits into 10 server racks .

It is named Watson and it was designed to win at Jeopardy. In other words it can decipher the riddles that normally make up a Jeopardy question, and click the buzzer faster than the two best players in the history of the game. The winner gets a cool $1,000,000.00

I am looking forward to this so much.

I voted Watson. It'll be able to click in faster than a Human and will only click in if it figures out the right answer.

What is "and I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords"?

Yes, i too see the value of automatizing answers using a giant database and fast hardware so it can perform a search function as fast as possible so people can pass it off as advancement in AI research...

Wake me up when they actually have a computer that can actually learn from experience... otherwise the war will only last until some 12 year old figures out what exploits work against it.

Search function? Watson is a natural language processor that can get past the word play and intentional miscues that make up a Jeopardy clue to find out the real question being asked, and score an 80% (IIRC) certainty rate before buzzing in the answer. All this done in a matter of seconds after receiving the clue. To call it a giant database and fast hardware is akin to calling a Cern an automated slide-rule.

I for one look forward to the long term practical applications of a system like Watson.

I vote jennings. He is a machine, and will often click prior to the question being finished (ie, he clicks the instant the lights go on).

As fast as the server rack may be, it still has to process the question (does it use voice recognition, does someone key it in, or are the questions submitted instantaneously at the same time as the lights go on, or what?) then it has to search its memory, then it can click.

Although if this sentence is correct: has 15 terabytes of random-access memory - rather than hard drive space, then it may be able to go blazingly fast.

I think it'll hinge on how the system accepts input. If it's text to speech, I think the humans have an advantage.

I picked Watson because we both work for the same people. Last I had heard questions needed to be submitted via text to Watson, in their practice games they had the clues already typed up and would give it to Watson as soon as the announcer finished reading it.

I remember reading an article about this machine (I think someone here posted it, actually) It's a good read.

As to how well it will do, it depends on the questions. If the show wanted to, they could probably make Watson look pretty bad.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/13/technology/ibm_jeopardy_watson/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

Duhn duhn DUUUUUHHHHHHNNNNNNN!

Trivia fact. Brad Rutter was good friends with my brother in High School, and I'm good friends with his brother, Greg.

Covar said:

To call it a giant database and fast hardware is akin to calling a Cern an automated slide-rule.

Click to expand...

Actually it's a giant cannon, but whatever...

Covar said:

I for one look forward to the long term practical applications of a system like Watson.

Click to expand...

Who was talking about practical applications?! Murderous robot overlord is where it's at... and i don't see a search algorithm, no matter how complex leading to that...

So, it's happening. I missed the first day, but luckily it's up on Youtube.





Edited for spoiler.

I am pretty ticked off that the news is spoiling this from the start. I have it recorded on my DVR at the house. But NOooooo..... the results are plastered all over the headlines today.

I guess I screwed up by watching House instead. I can't believe Forman and Taub are now room-mates...

Poor Ken. I guess he hasn't kept up his button pressing skills.

It's too bad they don't use speech recognition. All the info is fed to watson as data, rather than hearing it.

What's interesting is that Watson's inability to hear cost it 2 answers. Once when it repeated Ken Jennings wrong answer and then when it had the wrong context for its question ("What is a leg?" instead of "What is missing a leg?").

It's been great so far, and watching the wrong answers are possibly more fascinating than the right ones.

[edit] pronoun mistakes, Watson is not a person.

Go Brad!

That was a large gain in nerd street cred...

sixpackshaker said:

That was a large gain in nerd street cred...

Click to expand...

Oh, he's one of us. Read his interview here.

If they gave Watson the Hammond Connery voice, I'd have died laughing.

That would have been amazingly epic.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110302/ap_on_hi_te/us_congressman_jeopardy_computer

A Congressman beat Watson.

He is a former Jeopardy Champ from before Trebeck's time, it also does not hurt that he's a rocket scientist too.