Quiz show “Jeopardy!” presents humans versus supercomputer

Quiz show "Jeopardy!" presents humans versus supercomputer

Television game show "Jeopardy!" will air a special edition this winter featuring a contest between human contestants and an IBM supercomputer. The show will highlight the extent of how computers can make decisions just like human beings. Former "Jeopardy!" champions Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings will return to match wits against IBM's "Watson" supercomputer which was made by the computing industry pioneer's artificial intelligence engineers. Rutter has won a show-record $3.3 million in past contests while Jennings holds the record for consecutive wins with 74, doing in during the 2004-2005 season. Producers of the game show announced that the contest would be aired from February 14-16 next year. The human-versus-computer match is akin to the chess match between chess legend Garry Kasparov and another IBM supercomputer in 1997. The "Deep Blue" computer defeated Kasparov in their duel.

The format of "Jeopardy!" is not a straightforward question-and-answer scheme. contestants need to take note of tricks, riddles, clues and subtleties in the questions before coming up with quick answers. The computer "Watson" is named by IBM after Thomas J. Watson, the founder of the company. It will be represented by a round symbol on the show. IBM said that "Watson" had already fought about 50 matches against past winners of the popular game show, but it would not reveal the success rate of the computer. One million dollars will be given to the winner. Rutter and Jennings said that they would donate half of their winnings to charity. Same goes for IBM in case its supercomputer outlasts its human opponents.

Posted by Kade Quinn on Wednesday December 15 2010, 1:55 AM EST. Ref: AP. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Entertainment, Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0