For those of you technological neophytes, tonight's Jeopardy marked a revolutionary turn for computers and the future of technology. The computer Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, competed on Jeopardy! tonight in the first day of a three-day tournament (Feb. 14-16). Watson is a computing system that has the innate ability to understand the questions that humans ask and provide the answers that humans can understand. Like the human brain, it can sift through a countless amount of data and return accurate answers. Watson showcasing on Tonight's Jeopardy! has been in the works for close to four years - it did not disappoint. It was a truly remarkable thing to watch. Watson competed against two formidable human players, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. The computer received the clue electronically at the exact same time that the human players saw it. Obviously, the challenge was to correctly and rapidly comprehend the question and then buzz in. It was especially interesting to see how Watson was able to answer the questions in the correct Jeopardy! format (e.g. what is? who is?). The results of the first day are now in, with a tie for first place between Brad Rutter and Watson at $5,000. Double Jeopardy will somehow be incorporated into Part 2 tomorrow night. Check it out. (Plus the promo video was awesome)
P.S. I cannot even imagine the impact this will have on business intelligence, information management, and government decision-making.
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