Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

By David Bauder, Associated Press | Tuesday, December 14, 2010, 10:28 AM

The game show "Jeopardy!" will pit man versus machine this winter in a competition that will show how successful scientists are in creating a computer that can mimic human intelligence.



Two of the venerable game show's most successful champions — Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter — will play two games against "Watson," a computer program developed by IBM's artificial intelligence team. The matches will be spread over three days that will air Feb. 14-16, the game show said on Tuesday.



The competition is reminiscent of when IBM developed a chess-playing computer to compete against chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.



The "Jeopardy!" answer-and-question format is a different kind of challenge. It often requires contestants to deal with subtleties, puns and riddles and come up with answers fast.



"Watson" is named for IBM founder Thomas J. Watson. It will look nothing like the computer "maid" on "The Jetsons." Rather, IBM said its on-screen appearance will be represented by a round avatar.



The computer has already been tested in some 50 games against past "Jeopardy!" champions. But neither IBM nor "Jeopardy!" representatives would say what "Watson's" record was.



The winner gets a $1 million prize. IBM said it would donate its winnings to charity, while Jennings and Rutter said they would give half of their prize money away.



Jennings had the game show's longest winning streak, taking 74 games in a row during the 2004-2005 season. Rutter has won more money than any other "Jeopardy!" player, nearly $3.3 million during his original appearance and three subsequent tournaments.



IBM is hoping the technology it exhibits will have some practical uses eventually, for instance helping doctors diagnose illnesses or solving customer problems at technical support centers.

http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/jeopardy-to-pi ... hine--1975" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

sounds like horseshit ...

so the question is can the program parse & gooooogle quicker than Ken Jennings can think ?

atleast with the chess program, it had the human's countermoves to deal with ....

An attempt at a Turing Test?

+ What SR said.

I think the issue here might be more about getting the computer to decypher the clues, which does sound reasonably difficult to program.

They wouldn't be doing this if it were easy, they'd just make a mockery of themselves.

Haven't looked at any links yet, but is it clear what sort of interface they're going to be using to feed the input into the machine? (There was mention of an avatar face on a monitor.)

If they've got something that can process visual & auditory input and reply vocally, that's pretty fucking impressive. (I'm assuming they're going to type in the categories and item "answers", or maybe speak them in, and the program will respond vocally. Visual processing shouldn't be that far developed yet.)

(The Turing Test requires participants to NOT know who is human and who machine. )

They'll have to give it a thumb too, so it can hit that little button.

I'll watch this.

Omphalos wrote:a thumb too, so it can hit that little button

I don't know what it is lately, but all your posts read somehow pornographic.

SandChigger wrote:

Omphalos wrote:a thumb too, so it can hit that little button

I don't know what it is lately, but all your posts read somehow pornographic.

You must not be able to get that Japanese robo/tentacle/flick out of your mind. That, my friend, is a Sandchigger problem. Not a Tidwell problem.

BUT ALL THINGS FROM THE TIDWELL FLOW! AMEN!

SandChigger wrote:
(The Turing Test requires participants to NOT know who is human and who machine. )

Very good point...