Plasma television hanging on the wall, please tell viewers who is the greatest “Jeopardy!” champion of them all.
In the past, that question might have easily had been answered by Ken Jennings, who set a “Jeopardy!” record by winning 74 games in a row in the 2004-05 season. But Jennings and any other human contestant might not be the answer for long. IBM created a computing system named Watson to compete against Jennings and Brad Rutter, another accomplished “Jeopardy!” champ. Rutter won more money on the show than any other contestant. He accumulated a fortune of about $3.2 million during his time on the show.
Watson was named in honor of IBM founder Thomas J. Watson. While a quick search engine inquiry could provide the “question” in “Jeopardy!” style for straightforward puzzles, Watson is designed to analyze the more subtle hints and clues. The system is designed to think like a human—with the added bonus of having almost all of the knowledge in human history stored on it.
Jennings, Rutter and Watson will compete for a $1 million top prize. Finishing second earns the runner-up $300,000. Third place is worth $200,000. Rutter and Jennings have pledged to donate half of their winnings to charity. IBM’s share will go entirely to charity. “Jeopardy!” will answer whether humans or supercomputers are the best at trivia and word puzzles.
This is not the first time that IBM created a computer to take on the best human competitors in the world. Deep Blue beat chess world champion Garry Kasparov two wins to one with three draws in a six-game match in 1997. Kasparov had defeated an earlier version of Deep Blue in 1996. The lesson of these matches does not bode well for human competitors. Early success against the machine only allows programmers to tweak the program and make the system even more unbeatable. The “Jeopardy!” competition airs in February 2011.