IBM's 'Watson' to take on Jeopardy! champs

by Chris Lefkow Chris Lefkow – Fri Feb 11, 12:37 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Nearly 15 years after an IBM machine defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, the US computer pioneer is rolling out another device to challenge mankind.

Watson, a supercomputer named for IBM founder Thomas Watson, is to take on two human champions of the long-running Jeopardy! television quiz show in two games over three days next week.

Like Kasparov, who lost a six-game match to IBM's "Deep Blue" in 1997, Ken Jennings, who holds the Jeopardy! record of 74 straight wins, and Brad Rutter, winner of $3.25 million on the show, are expected to have their hands full.

In a practice match at IBM Research headquarters in upstate New York last month, Watson came out on top in terms of prize money, although the computer and the two human contestants correctly answered all of the 15 questions.

Jeopardy!, which first aired on US television in 1964, tests a player's knowledge of trivia in a range of categories, from geography to politics to history to sports and entertainment.

In a twist on traditional game play, contestants are provided with answers and need to supply the questions.

During the practice match, for example, one of the clues was: "The film Gigi gave him his signature song 'Thank Heaven for Little Girls.'"

Watson, represented by a large computer monitor, sounded the buzzer a split second ahead of Jennings and Rutter and answered correctly in its artificial voice "Who is Maurice Chevalier?"

A dollar amount is attached to each question and the player with the most money at the end of the game is the winner. Players have money deducted for wrong answers.

Watson, which is not connected to the Internet, plays the game by crunching through multiple algorithms at dizzying speed and attaching a percentage score to what it believes is the correct response.

For the Maurice Chevalier question, for example, Watson was 98 percent certain that the name of the French crooner was the right answer.

Developing a supercomputer that can compete with the best human Jeopardy! players involves challenges more complex than those faced by the scientists behind the chess-playing "Deep Blue."

"The thing about chess is that it's fairly straightforward to represent the game in a computer," said Eric Brown, a member of the IBM Research team that has been working on Watson since 2006.

"With chess, it's almost mathematical," Brown told AFP. "You can consider all the possibilities. It's almost a closed set of options."

Jeopardy!, on the other hand, involves the use of natural language, raising a whole host of problems for a computer.

"Questions are expressed in language and with an ability to be asked in an infinite numbers of ways," Brown said, including the use of irony, ambiguity, riddles and puns -- not a computer's strong suit.

"The initial approach that people might want to take is to just build a giant database," Brown said. "That approach is just not suitable."

Playing Jeopardy! is also not like searching the Web.

"While they're somewhat related, Google and Watson are solving two different problems," Brown said.

"With Web search, you express your information with a few keywords and then a search engine will bring back 10 or half-a-million Web pages that match what you're looking for.

"But if you're looking for precise information (like with Jeopardy!) you'll have the task of wading through those documents to find the answer that you're looking for," he said.

Watson uses what IBM calls Question Answering technology to tackle Jeopardy! clues, gathering evidence, analysing it and then scoring and ranking the most likely answer.

The winner of the man vs. machine showdown which begins on Monday is to receive $1 million. Second place is worth $300,000 and the third place finisher pockets $200,000.

IBM plans to donate 100 percent of its winnings to charity. Jennings and Rutter plan to give 50 percent of their prize money to charity.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110211...JtMzlzMzl3YXRz

Where can I sign up to get $200,000 by coming in last place?

IBM computer, Jeopardy! champ tied after first day
by Chris Lefkow Chris Lefkow – 31 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – An IBM computer displayed a few quirks but played to a draw on the opening day of a man vs. machine showdown with two human champions of the popular US television game show Jeopardy!.

"Watson," a supercomputer named after the founder of the US technology giant Thomas Watson, and human contestant Brad Rutter each had $5,000 after the first day of the three-day match.

The other human player, Ken Jennings, was trailing the pair with $2,000.

Watson, represented on stage by a large computer monitor, was frequently quicker to the buzzer than Rutter and Jennings, correctly answering questions in its artificial voice.

Jeopardy!, which first aired on US television in 1964, tests a player's knowledge in a range of categories, from geography to politics to history to sports and entertainment.

A dollar amount is attached to each question and the player with the most money at the end of the game is the winner. Players have money deducted for wrong answers.

In a twist on traditional game play, contestants are provided with clues and need to supply the questions.

Watson receives the clues electronically by text message at the same time as they are revealed to the human contestants. The first player to hit the buzzer gets to answer the question.

Watson showed an impressive grasp of the Beatles songbook.

"What is Maxwell's silver hammer?" replied Watson to the clue "Bang, bang, his silver hammer came down upon her head," a reference to the Beatles song.

"What is Eleanor Rigby?" Watson answered correctly to the clue "She died in the church and was buried along with her name, nobody came."

Watson at one point built up a commanding lead with $4,000 to $200 each for Rutter and Jennings.

But the machine then began to slip up, oddly repeating a wrong answer to a question Jennings had already answered incorrectly.

Jennings wrongly identified the 1920s as the decade during which the crossword puzzle and the Oreo cookie were introduced.

Given its chance, Watson also said in the 1920s.

"No, Ken said that," Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek admonished Watson.

Rutter then answered correctly -- the 1910s.

On another question, about a one-legged US Olympic champion, the clue was "It was the anatomical oddity of US gymnast George Eyser who won a gold medal on the parallel bars in 1904."

Watson replied "What is a leg?" instead of "What is missing a leg?"

"Watson's very bright, very fast but he has some weird little moments once in a while," Trebek said.

Watson, which is not connected to the Internet, plays the game by crunching through multiple algorithms at dizzying speed and attaching a percentage score to what it believes is the correct response.

Watson, which has been under development at IBM Research labs in New York since 2006, is the latest machine developed by IBM to challenge mankind -- in 1997, an IBM computer named "Deep Blue" defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game match.

Developing a supercomputer that can compete with the best human Jeopardy! players, however, involves challenges more complex than those faced by the scientists behind "Deep Blue," according to IBM researchers.

Watson uses what IBM calls Question Answering technology to tackle Jeopardy! clues, gathering evidence, analyzing it and then scoring and ranking the most likely answer.

"You are about to witness what may prove to be an historic competition -- an exhibition match pitting an IBM computer system against the two most celebrated and successful players in Jeopardy! history," Trebek said to kick off the show.

Jennings holds the Jeopardy! record of 74 straight wins while Rutter won a record $3.25 million on the show.

The winner of the Jeopardy! showdown is to receive $1 million. Second place is worth $300,000 and the third place finisher pockets $200,000.

IBM plans to donate 100 percent of its winnings to charity. Jennings and Rutter plan to give 50 percent of their prize money to charity.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110215...JtY29tcHV0ZXJq

I watched the first round yesterday and noticed Watson did great on the easier, lower money questions, but lost ground as the questions became more complex.

Should be interesting to see how it finishes out. I would say the computers biggest advantage seems to be it's ability to buzz in faster. Most of the questions were easy compared to a regular Jeopardy game and I'm certain the 2 champs knew the answers, they just couldn't get buzzed in.

Man, I forgot this was starting, grrr. hopefully I won't forget tomorrow.

SPOILER ALERT: computer looms large in 'Jeopardy!'

NEW YORK – The computer has brained his human competition in Day 2 of the Man vs. Machine competition on "Jeopardy!"

Veteran "Jeopardy!" champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter scored only five correct responses between them during the "Double Jeopardy!" round that aired Tuesday. They ended this first game of a two-game match with paltry earnings of $2,400 and $5,400, respectively.

Watson, their IBM supercomputer rival, emerged from the "Final Jeopardy!" round with $35,734.

The trio will return on Wednesday, when their second game is aired. The overall winner will collect $1 million.

The bouts were taped at the IBM research center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., last month.

___

Online:

http://jeopardy.com


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110215/...man_vs_machine

IBM's Watson Dominates Jeopardy Competition on Day 2
Ian Paul Ian Paul – Wed Feb 16, 8:58 am ET

IBM supercomputer Watson blew away the competition Tuesday night during its Jeopardy showdown with the game show's former champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. The computer was able to answer 13 of the first 15 Jeopardy clues virtually uncontested, with one answer going to Jennings and another problem that all three contestants got wrong. Watson ended the broadcast with $35,734, followed by Rutter at $10,400 and Jennings at $4,800. The competitors will square off again Wednesday night for a final Jeopardy battle.

Watson Screams Ahead Again

There appeared to be some hope that Rutter and Jennings would be able to compete effectively against Watson during the latter part of Monday's Jeopardy round. Watson started to trip up on more advanced wordplay and ended Monday tied with Rutter at $5,000 each.

But Watson and its 13.64 terabytes of memory got the job done quickly during Tuesday's broadcast, and in cutthroat fashion, too. Unlike Monday's show, Watson played aggressively, choosing large-money problems mostly in the Double Jeopardy round. The higher the clue's value, the harder the wordplay tends to be.

The first 15 clues were indicative of how the rest of the game, went with Watson dominating the rest of the game.

Watson takes a guess?

Watson surprised the audience during the second Daily Double clue when the computer wasn't sure of the answer but hazarded a guess anyway. Watson isn't supposed to answer unless its level of certainty passes a threshold (based on a percentage) dubbed Watson's "buzz threshold."

The threshold isn't a fixed value and floats depending on the clue's level of difficulty. Watson was 32 percent certain of the correct answer, but that was well below its buzz threshold for that clue. So faced with the prospect of losing money if it didn't answer (only the contestant who picks the Daily Double clue may answer), the computer went with its best guess and it was correct.

The Jeopardy clue Watson guessed on was, "The ‘Ancient Lion of Nimrud' went missing from this city's national museum in 2003 (along with a lot of other stuff)." The answer was "What is Baghdad?"

Back To Google Maps For Watson

Watson tripped up again in Final Jeopardy on which the computer wagered just $947. All three contestants were asked to identify a city with two airports: one named after a World War II hero and another named after a World War II battle. The correct answer was Chicago and both human contestants answered correctly. Watson, on the other hand, answered "Toronto" and was highly uncertain of its response. It appears the computer somehow failed to realize that the category, U.S. cities, would help narrow down its choices. You can check out IBM's take on what went wrong on the company's A Smarter Planet blog.

Regardless of Watson's shortcomings the IBM super computer has been dominant against its human adversaries. Now, it all comes down to Wednesday night's broadcast when Jennings and Rutter will attempt to battle back and overcome Watson's commanding lead.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/2011...JtMzlzd2F0c29u

SPOILER ALERT: Man vs Machine tourney concludes
By FRAZIER MOORE, AP Television Writer Frazier Moore, Ap Television Writer – 1 hr 1 min ago

NEW YORK – A computer named Watson has trounced a pair of mortals to win the "Jeopardy!" challenge between man and machine.

Watson, the IBM megabrain, finished off his flesh-and-blood opponents, veteran "Jeopardy!" champs Ken Jennings and Ken Rutter, in the second of a two-game tournament that began Monday.

Watson's winning score Wednesday was $41,413 ($77,147 for both games), while Jennings notched $19,200 for the day ($24,000 overall) and Rutter reached only $11,200 ($21,600 overall).

For crushing his rivals, Watson gets a total prize of $1 million, which IBM plans to donate to charity. Jennings and Rutter win $300,000 and $200,000, respectively.

The bouts were taped at the IBM research center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., last month.

___

Online:

http://jeopardy.com


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/...ching_jeopardy