February 23, 2011
The
Portland Observer Black HiStOiy Month
Page 13
l-technology
Machine Trounces Man on Jeopardy!
Showcases
advances in
science and
computing
who has in previous appearances
won a total of $3.3 million, followed
with $21,600.
"I for one welcome our new
com puter overlords," Jennings
wrote next to his last answer, dis
playing one human quality con
spicuously absent in W atson - a
sense of humor.
IBM plans to donate all of
W atson's winnings to charity.
The Armonk, New York-based
company spends around $6 bil
lion a year on research and devel
opment. An unspecified part of
that goes to what it calls "grand
challenges," or big, m ultiyearsci-
ence projects such as W atson and
Deep Blue.
IBM has said it plans to use
W atson's linguistic and analyti
cal abilities to develop new prod
ucts in areas such as medical di
agnosis.
(AP) — Under the category of
artificial intelligence, it represents
both a loss and a trium ph for hu
mans.
What is "W atson"?
An IBM com puter handily beat
two human com petitors on the
popular U.S. quiz show "Jeop
ardy!" in a three-day showdown
that ended last W ednesday, high
lighting at the sam e tim e the
progress people have m ade in
making machines able to think like
them.
« e r S l X X n a . Z 1 dneasf;
M achines Corp president Thomas
W atson, is a show case of the
com pany's expertise in advanced
science and com puting.
W atson showed off its ency
clopedic know ledge o f topics
ranging from ancient languages
to fashion design, along with a
few glitches.
"Vedic, dating back at least 4000
years, is the earliest dialect of this
classical language of India," was
one o f the clues given by host
Alex Trebek.
"What is Sanskrit?" Watson an
swered in the show's question-as-
an-answer style, before going on to
solve clues ranging from agricul
tural policy in the European Union
to the designer Marc Jacobs.
The latest challenge shows that
IBM - which turns 100 years old
this year - wants to stay at the
forefront of technology, even as
companies such as Google Inc and
A pple Inc have becom e the
industry's darlings.
What makes Watson particularly
advanced, even compared to Deep
B lue, IB M 's c h e ss-p la y in g
supercom puter that beat world
champion Garry Kasparov in 1997,
is its ability to find answers from
ambiguous clues, such as this one:
"It's a poor workman who blames
these."
"W hat are tools?" answ ered
W atson.
W atson wasn't perfect, how
ever, and made some baffling er
rors such as com ing up with "Dor
othy Parker" instead of "The Ele
ments of Style" and repeating
other contestants' m istakes.
In the end, however, Watson won
with $77,147 while Ken Jennings,
who won 74 games in a row during
the show's 2004-2005 season, came
in second with $24,000. Brad Rutter,
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