Watson Holds His Own on 'Jeopardy,' Fails to Entertain

Last night, IBM's Watson made his television debut, taking on two of the most successful champions in 'Jeopardy' history, Ken Jennings (winner of 75 matches in a row) and Brad Rutter (who holds the all-time Jeopardy cash winnings record). In the first round of play, the IBM supercomputer got off to a roaring start, trouncing the two champions early on. But Brad eventually caught up with Watson, ending the round tied at $5,000. Jennings lagged behind with only $2,000. While Watson made a couple of mildly embarrassing errors, there are still two more nights of play remaining to show us lowly humans that any setbacks are merely minor bumps in the road towards world domination.

Watching a supercomputer take on humans on their own turf raises some interesting questions. Most glaringly, is it even fun to watch a lightning-quick machine pounce on questions (er, answers) before its human opponents can even process a clue? Blake Eskin at the New Yorker and a few others don't seem to think so. They all concede that the match is tense, but the competition lacks fun.

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Watson Holds His Own on 'Jeopardy,' Fails to Entertain originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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