Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Watson on Jeopardy

Did you see Watson, the IBM computer compete on Jeopardy last week. I did, in fact I was really looking forward to it. Obviously the geek in me was awed by the computing power.

Watson clearly dominated. In the three day match he beat the two human competitors by a margin of roughly 3 to 1. Obviously Watson got many answers right, but what I found interesting was what he got wrong. When he was wrong, he was VERY wrong! I’m sure we’ve all heard about the Final Jeopardy answer in the second match. All those people from Toronto never knew they were Americans! But some other more interesting mistakes where when he didn’t even give the right kind of reply.

For example, on the question: “In May 2010 5 Paintings worth $125 Million by Braque, Matisse & 3 others left Paris’ museum of this art period?” The answer was Modern Art, Watson said Picasso, obviously not an art period.

The use for this kind of computing power boggles my mind. We just have to remember to sanity check his answers!

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