Jeopardy to have a supercomputer contestant

[Maxx]

ORO mentioned it in a status update, but here's the full story...

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2011/0113/Jeopardy!-supercomputer-Is-the-next-game-show-champ-a-machine

Watson, a computer built by a team of scientists at IBM, has bested two former Jeopardy! champs in a practice round of the popular game show. That's the word today from the tech site ZDNet, which was on hand to watch the proceedings and ask a few questions of the participants. (The human ones, at least; presumably Watson isn't quite ready to handle a press conference.)

According to ZDNet, Watson, which took four years to build and perfect, went a single round with Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Once the dust had cleared, Watson stood triumphant, having racked up an admirable $4,400. By comparison, Jennings won $3,400, and Rutter won $1,200. (Some very shaky video of the showdown is below.)

"As one of the dozens of humans watching this practice round, I can’t deny I was a bit squeamish about seeing a supercomputer wing it, adapt and show off its artificial intelligence," writes ZDNet's Larry Dignan. "Is this thing going to be Skynet? That’s a bit farfetched – today IBM is thinking health care will make the most use of Watson – but a supercomputer that has self-awareness and can learn gives this human pause."

Of course, the practice round was just a warm-up for good old Watson. On Feb. 14, 15, and 16, the IBM computer will get a shot at real, live competition, when Jeopardy! airs a "man vs. machine" showdown.

“After four years, our scientific team believes that Watson is ready for this challenge based on its ability to rapidly comprehend what the Jeopardy! clue is asking, analyze the information it has access to, come up with precise answers, and develop an accurate confidence in its response,” IBM scientist Dr. David Ferrucci told Mashable this week.

Bottom line: The robots are coming! Prepare.

And that's a practice round against two of the highest scoring Jeopardy players ever.

Start building the bunkers now.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

I'm hardly surprised though. If you take any clue, take out common words, and pop the proper nouns and other key terms into Google, you'd probably get the right answer too. This thing's just a glorified search engine with tremendous processing power.

[OctoberRaven]

Now we know who the Raw GM is... the computer itself!

DUN DUN DUN!

[sahyder1]

Could've sworn we had a thread for this. They announced this last month and I love the idea. Really looking forward to see how it plays out on tv. Two day event for charity is pretty cool though. I think they said there is a $1 Million prize for the winner and I believe $300K and $200K for the other two. IBM is donating 100% of its winnings to charity while th other two are donating 50%

[Damian WayLNKe]

If you're interested in this, you should check out this documentary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Over:_Kasparov_and_the_Machine

It goes over the controversy surrounding IBM's super computer that played chess and beat world champion Garry Kasparaov.

[Maxx]

You should also check out my blog where I play scrabble against a computer and it gives me cryptic clues about the machine uprising, while also making a pass at me.

What? Sahyder does this kind of stuff all the time.

[apsham]

I remember an article not too long ago about the practice round where the computer just wasn't up to snuff but watching that is kind of eerie.

[sahyder1]

A request on behalf of those of us who actually watch Jeopardy. The shows have already been taped. Kindly spoiler tag the results if you post them here. Thanks.

[Maxx]

Isn't it airing as a live special?

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

I don't think so. It'd be hard to work out the mechanics of a syndicated show airing live, wouldn't it?

[Maxx]

I imagine it'd just air as a prime time special, apparently not though.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

As a prime time special where though? In some markets it's on ABC, others NBC, and so on.

[Maxx]

CBS owns the distribution rights, so I imagine it would end up on there. My god, you do like to argue about everything.

[sahyder1]

I'm pretty sure the actual shows were taped last month. I remember them advertising it last month. They have been doing extra shows for media only. Local ABC affiliate did a story on it a couple of days ago on the evening news.

Shows awill be airing on regular Jeopardy time slots.

Edited January 15, 2011 by sahyder1

[sahyder1]

Bumping this as a reminder. The 3 days worth of shows start airing tonight.

[zero]

RIP human race.

[Meacon Keaton]

Yeah, that was surreal. Someone needs to kill it, and kill it quickly.

[Guest mr. potato head]

I think the main reason it's winning is because it doesn't have that split-second pause before it hits the buzzer. These aren't difficult questions for the most part, but humans have reaction time factoring in.

[Gazz]

It's just a box with a guy and a laptop inside it

[Meacon Keaton]

It's just a box with a guy and a laptop inside it

Midgets in boxes scare me more than supercomputers.