Computer Conquers 'Jeopardy!'
By SPENCER E. ANTE
Watson came out swinging.
In its first public demonstration, the computer system built by International Business Machines Corp. defeated two "Jeopardy!" champions in a practice match ahead of a formal competition that will air on TV in mid-February.
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The room-sized system, powered by 90 servers and 360 computer chips, was built over the past four years by a team of IBM researchers who set out to develop a machine that could quickly answer complex questions involving puns and wordplay.
[...] Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, was designed instead to understand the more complex domain of words, language and human knowledge.
To emulate the human mind, and make it competitive on the TV quiz show, Watson was stuffed with millions of documents—including dictionaries, anthologies and the World Book Encyclopedia. After reading a clue, Watson mines the database, poring over 200 million pages of content in less than three seconds. Researchers developed algorithms to measure Watson's level of confidence in an answer in order to decide whether it should hit the "Jeopardy!" buzzer.
The first contest was held in an auditorium at IBM's Research Lab in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., that was dressed up like the real "Jeopardy!" set. Former champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter took the stage with Watson, represented by a glowing map of the globe displayed on a flat-panel computer screen, positioned between them.
Mr. Jennings chose a category called "Chicks Dig Me." The host read a clue: "Kathleen Kenyon's excavation of this city mentioned in Joshua shows that the walls had been repaired 17 times."
"What is Jericho?" answered Watson correctly in a simulated masculine voice. Watson went on to answer the next four clues before the humans recovered and answered one.
Ten minutes later, it was over. The machine was quicker than the two champions and amazingly accurate. Final score: Watson: $4,400, Mr. Jennings: $3,400, and Mr. Rutter: $1,200.
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