Comments | seal_clubber: Watson on Jeopardy

seal_clubber

Watson on Jeopardy

Feb 18, 2011 12:47

I thoroughly enjoyed watching IBM's new supercomputer, Watson, playing Jeopardy this past week against former champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. From the outset, it became clear that Watson was going to hand the humans their asses, despite a few flubs (e.g. Toronto is not a U.S. airport, Dorothy Parker is not a style guide). I was extremely ( Read more... )

self:nerd

Comments 3

wraithgirl February 18 2011, 18:16:49 UTC

That's so cool! I wish I had seen that. I'll have to see if we can find it again on the West Coast or something.

Neat. And a bit spooky.

seal_clubber February 18 2011, 19:26:01 UTC

I should clarify: I thoroughly enjoyed watching this on YouTube. I don't really watch TV anymore, so I kind of miss these things until after the fact.

Day 1, Part 1 is here. Enjoy!

I won on Jeopardy!, Davie, Oooo, ooo ooo oooh! gmajor March 2 2011, 18:48:07 UTC

Gminor and I watched the NOVA special on prepping Watson for Jeopardy! last night. The program ends with a list of dates where it would appear. She said, "Hey, that's already happened!" and I said, "Yeah, Uncle [Seal Clubber] said they were on YouTube; He posted it on his blog," so we switched over to the Apple TV and watched two of the three shows.

Although many MANY people have posted clips of Watson's "Toronto" flub, it's noteworthy that it's betting was conservative "$947" of his $35,000 jackpot, far and above its human opponents measly $2500 to $5000. Even if Watson had bet $10,000 or $15,000 and lost it still would've won the game, so "nyeah!".

We discussed the question (I knew the answer, "O'Hare" + "Dulles" = Chicago, and only because of the Die Hard movies.) and, knowing its thought processes realized why it came up with its answer. Search cities that have two airports, pretend "Toronto Island" is a WWII battle, and assume "Lester B. Pearson" has a war record...