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IBM Supercomputer Hopes to Compete on Jeopardy

by Terrence O'Brien on April 27, 2009 at 06:17 PM


Years after building a computer called Deep Blue that gave chess champion Garry Kasparov a run for his money, IBM is now taking aim at another human-only intellectual pursuit -- 'Jeopardy!'

IBM is developing a supercomputer, along with an accompanying program called Watson, to compete on the popular game show, and may even face off against the painfully brilliant Ken Jennings, who holds the record for longest-reigning Jeopardy champion.

The computer's design team has quite a difficult challenge in front of it. Beyond having to parse a vast database of information for answers, the program will have to understand and respond to complex phrasing, puns, analogies, and relationships. And it will have to perform these tasks at lightning speed in order to beat the human contestants to the buzzer. To level the playing field a bit, the computer will not have access to the limitless stores of information online, and will instead be limited to a database of information collected before the show.

Details about the appearance -- what form the answering computer will take (animated avatar, computerized voice, etc.), who it will face off against, and when the contest will take place -- are still unknown. But there's time to iron out those details since IBM has said the computer is still not ready for primetime. In a recent demonstration match, Watson made some very confusing errors, the New York Times reported yesterday. After correctly identifying a country bordering on "Syria and Israel...[and] only 135 miles long and 35 miles wide" as Lebanon, the computer later claimed that a "sheet" was a fruit.

If IBM succeeds in creating a computer that is even competitive on Jeopardy, it will represent a stunning leap forward for artificial intelligence (A.I.) technology. Thus far, A.I. has failed (and rather spectacularly at that) in recreating the capabilities of the human brain. [From: Engadget and New York Times]

Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, ArtificialIntelligence, game show, GameShow, ibm, jeopardy, super computer, SuperComputer, top, watson

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