This week Jeopardy had it's first computer contestant, Watson. Watson is an IBM project trying to get a computer to understand human language, decipher a question and search though endlessness data to find the correct answer. Watson has gotten a lot of publicity gearing up for the Jeopardy debut earlier this week. PBS aired their program "Smartest Machine on Earth" on February 9th which gave viewers the background on the Watson project. Then Watson played a 3-day tournament against Jeopardy's most winning contestants February 14th-16th, and won, big-time. I couldn't help feel for those 2 super-smart human contestants that at times looked helpless and frustrated having a hard time getting an answer in before Watson. It is undeniable that Watson isn't perfect (Toronto is defiantly not a city in the US) but he could be a valuable tool in the future, in fact there are plans to send him to Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine to help doctors diagnose ailments. Learn more about Watson at:
• IBM • PBS • Washington Post •
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