[mdchick88]

That was the most exciting half hour of television I've seen in a while!! I'm a computer science major (gradating in May... woohoo!) and it's soooo cool that this is possible!

For those who haven't heard about this - IBM created a supercomputer (named Watson) that can receive the question, and using some crazy-smart algorithm, find an answer in its memory. And it can decide how confident it is with the answer, and only "buzzes in" when it's confidence is above a certain threshold.

I feel like such a dork, but how cool is that?!? It's a 3 day tournament, so it'll be continuing tomorrow. The computer is competing against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, the two best Jeopardy contestants so far. Yay technology!!

[lluvyblu]

I haven't seen this yet but that sounds so cool. My family loves Jeopardy and we watch it everyday. I haven't been able to lately because I'm away at college. I'll have to ask my parents if they've seen this yet.

[berryblondeboys]

My husband is a Jeopardy champion and has befriended several contestants and winners over the years. There was a lot more building up to this. Several past tournament of champion winners played Watson while this was almost ready for the big tournament and yes, some former champions did beat the computer in warm-ups. (and I'm not talking 2 years ago, but recently, shortly before this big tourney was taped). But what it can decipher is pretty incredible.

[DisgruntledOne]

i'm not smart enought to even watch the show but my office mate was totally geeked up about the tournament. I'm not even sure he realized today was valentines day and he does have a wife...lol

[nelie]

That sounds cool

I majored in Comp Sci as well with a specialization in AI so It was nearly 13 years ago but we did things like build up computer opponents to games along with other more real world applications like correlation of data.

[Sweetcaroline]

I loved this match ! ... I can't wait for the final tonight. I'm going to go out on a limb and bet that Watson wins the million...

[Ookpik]

There was a semi-big deal (in Canada) made of Watson picking Toronto as its answer for the category regarding U.S. cities when the question involved airport names. To be fair, though, there are cities in the U.S. named Toronto, but I have read that they don't have airports.

[Adam DeJourdan]

Yeah but give me a laptop with google and wikipedia and I could get the same answers, albeit not nearly as fast lol

[mandalinn82]

As someone who works in software design, I was fascinated mostly by the incredible algorithms that needed to be programmed in to make this work. The betting, the comparative assessment of confidence before buzzing in, the weighing of different factors ($$ in bank, category name, clue, etc) in comparison to the databank.

Those programmers should be very proud! But ultimately, the triumph belongs to them, not to the computer itself.

[saef]

IBM has gotten an amazing amount of publicity out of this, the kind that a company cannot buy. The kind those cheeky ads put the word "priceless" next to.

If anyone asks about the power of its mainframes -- good old "big iron" -- their salespeople have a stellar example to point out in sales calls.

(I work in technology, too -- on the consulting side, writing reports & research with tech analysts & consultants -- and in fact, I used to work at Big Blue before joining a consulting firm.)

[Sum38]

LOVED IT!!!

I think it was all programmed in? I think Watson was not able to use google etc?

[nelie]

yeah, basically he has a knowledge bank. It actually takes a lot of smart algorithms to make something like that happen.

[Adam DeJourdan]

You're right he did not use google he did have his own knowledge bank, I was just saying if I did have google I could find the answers too. The statistical analysis it runs isn't really new either I mean they have poker software that can calculate all that instantly as well (granted this is so much more complex). I guess the oddity is that it just hasn't all been put together before.

If anything I agree with Saef that it was all about publicity on a highly rated game show, putting IBM back in the public image.

[mandalinn82]

I think it's more about the triumph of programming skill in creating really smart algorithms. After all, you could find it with Google...but someone programmed Google's algorithms, too.

[EZMONEY]

Jeopardy was always a family show of ours when the kids were growing up....we still talk about the answers the knucklehead nephew used to give being his typical wise guy.

Even on family vacation 2004 we had to get back to the resort to see Ken win again....and again!!

Angie and I haven't been watching much since the kids grew and left....

it was fun watching this past week...enjoyed it.