The College Fix

The second of three rounds of the greatest Jeopardy! match-up ever premieres tonight. IBM has designed a computer named “Watson” that is capable of answering complex Jeopardy questions without the help of the Internet. Watson is up against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, two of Jeopardy! ‘s most celebrated champions.

Needless to say, the first round was pretty cool. Watson receives the questions as text files and uses algorithms and stored data to calculate the three most likely answers. He (it?) guesses the top answer only if it surpasses a threshold of certainty. If Watson isn’t sufficiently confident in his answer, he won’t buzz in.

There were a couple interesting moments. The first clue that Watson picked was revealed to be the “Daily Double,” a curiously lucky move for the machine. During a later question, Jennings was the first to buzz in and answered “the 1920s.” Alex Trebek told him he was wrong. Watson then buzzed in and answered “the 1920s,” which was of course still the wrong answer. Trebek chided Watson, “No, Ken said that.” But Watson isn’t capable of comprehending what the other players answer. He finished the round tied with Rutter ($5,000 each). Jennings isn’t far behind with $2,000.

Does this mean the technological Singularity is upon us? Find out tonight and tomorrow night.

Learn more about Watson here. For a great science fiction story to commemorate the event, read Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question.”

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