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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