It's not a total loss, as the game played on Thursday was simply practice, and did not include Double Jeopardy and Final Jeopardy, and didn't even complete Single Jeopardy. Instead they covered three categories (columns). When the dust settled, it was Watson $4,400, Jennings $3,400, and Rutter $1,200.
Taping for the actual shows (there will be three, shown on Feb. 14 - 16) will be on Friday. Some key points noted in the practice match:
Humans obviously lose the ability to psych out their opponent when its an emotionless computer. Jennings and Rutter both said they had been able to psych out opponents during their Jeopardy win streaks.
Skynet quips were plentiful, although IBM said Watson is far from that.
The strangest Jeopardy category to watch a computer to play was "Chicks Dig Me."
The Jeopardy questions were timed to hit Watson’s binary code at the same time that human retinas see them. Watson also has a mechanism to hit a signaling device.
When asked about what is was like playing Watson, Rutter said,
"I’m impressed with Watson and its speed. But after 10 or 15 questions Watson is just another good player. I have every confidence that we’ll do well."Who will win, human or computer? Despite assurances that Watson was not HAL 9000 or Skynet, when told by John Kelly III, director of IBM Research that human and computer intelligence were at an intersection point, and that computers could only improve, Rutter said:
“So we’re all extinct.”You can watch a pair of videos below.
