[Beowulf] IBM's Watson on Jeopardy tonight

[Lux, Jim (337C)]

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From: beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org [beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Aquilina [eagles051387 at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 00:13
To: beowulf at beowulf.org
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] IBM's Watson on Jeopardy tonight

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/14/jeopardy.ibm.watson/index.html

this is quite an interesting read.

question becomes are computers just as smart as we are?

I'm quite surprised that the computer doesn't have a massive lead

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Kind got into gear last night.. whipped the human's behinds big time.

It occurs to me that in the real game, among humans, there's a lot of psychology.. there's betting strategy, for one (although the show staff does give the contestants helpful information about good strategies).  But there's also a whole dynamic of "when do you buzz in if you think you "might" know the answer"

And, Watson's reaction time is unemotional.. The humans will have some effect.  Clearly, since they're champions, they're good at the timing, but when I was on the show, that was a HUGE factor. The guy who won was a stand-up comic and was very, very good at anticipating the light. There's also an advantage in being the winner from the previous day's game (actually filmed a few minutes before.. they film 5 shows in a day) because you've got the rhythm.

Jim