IBM’s Watson: How About, “We’re Fucked” for $100, Alex
January 14th, 2011Update: Watson Won
Via: PC World:
Wrapping up a three-day run on the Jeopardy game show, IBM’s Watson computer has beaten two former champions in a historic match of man versus machine.
—End Update—
Ah, don’t worry. Surely, the regime will use this for good. *sigh*
Via: Boston Globe:
IBM recently created a supercomputer named Watson that will compete against humans in the “Jeopardy!: IBM Challenge.”
The other two contestants? Previous “Jeopardy!” champions Ken Jennings, who won 74 consecutive matches, and Brad Rutter, who won a record-breaking $3.3 million as a contestant. The televised match will air in February, but today IBM offered a teaser in a three-round test battle.
Watson has been in the works for approximately four years. It is powered by 10 racks of IBM servers and has 15 terabytes of RAM. However, Google or KGB are no help to the machine, as it’s not connected to the Internet. Instead, it gets its information from myriad encyclopedias, dictionaries, books, and other sources of information it has digested. According to IBM, Watson has access to the equivalent of 200 million pages of content.
Watson also works just like a human contestant would: he has a buzzer and answers in the form of a question. Although as a bonus for the audience, the top three answers that Watson believes are correct are projected on a screen, giving insight into its decision-making process.
The results of the today’s match shouldn’t be too surprising. Tech blog Engadget.com reports that no question went answered incorrectly by any of the contestants, but the computer beat the human champs, as Watson led with $4,400, Jennings was second with $3,400, and Rutter rounded out the scoring with $1,200. Watch video of the competition on Engadget’s website.
Heh.
Let’s see what happens when they lie to Watson.
(cue: 2001/Space Odyssey theme music)
I just can’t… leave… this… alone:
I am not too worried about Jeopardy. However, when the computers start winning the real brain twisters — like “The Price Is Right” — then I’ll get worried.
Or….
…wait….
What if they put a computer on a “reality” show? They could designate a human chimp to simply follow the computer’s instructions (“Eat the spider, Bob”, or “build a life raft out of your crystallized snot, and sail to freedom, Bob”.)
Then, we’d all be “winners”.
Oh yeah.