Yes, after taking a strong lead after day two , IBM’s
machine took a resounding win at the end of the third and final day of its
Jeopardy challenge. Final score: Watson $77,147, Ken Jennings $24,000, Brad
Rutter $21,600.
There were only two situations where the human players showed
signs of superiority. The first came in the early questions of day three where
Jennings and Rutter appeared to conclude that a round about movies was
straightforward enough that it was safe to buzz in immediately and then use the
few seconds before their required response to figure out the puzzle. That
proved just enough to outdo Watson, which was programmed to (albeit it at a rapid
pace) both figure out the answer and decide whether it was worth buzzing in.
The second situation arose on the final question when
Jennings, as well as writing the correct answer, wrote “I, for one, welcome out
new computer overlords.” Not having been programmed for improvisation, Watson
failed to give the correct response of “What would be the best Simpsons line to
quote right now?”
Meanwhile IBM has given more explanation about Watson’s
incorrect answer of Toronto in a US Cities round. As well as noting the
confusion about the Blue Jays playing in the American league, it blamed two
further factors. Firstly, there are several smaller cities named Toronto in the
United States. Secondly, analysis of previous games suggests that the title of
a round doesn’t always match the questions perfectly: in this case Watson failed
to distinguish that “US Cities” is indeed a precisely defined group.
We certainly haven’t seen the end of Watson — and don’t
forget, in some ways, Apple’s voice-controlled assistant Siri is a
consumerized, hand-held version of Watson.
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