Jeopardy! IBM Challenge continues as Watson takes a huge lead

February 16, 2011 By Adam Rosenberg

Round two of the Jeopardy! IBM Challenge concluded last night with Watson taking a considerable lead over its human opponents.

Round two of the Jeopardy! IBM Challenge continued last night as past champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter returned to face off against the trivia-spouting supercomputer, Watson. The first round ended with Rutter and Watson tied at $5,000 and Jennings trailing at $2,000. Last night’s showdown played out very differently as the IBM creation pulled far ahead of its meatbag competitors over the course of the episode.

Despite making a few flubs on key questions, a high bid Daily Double and the Final Jeopardy question in particular, Watson ended the second of three rounds with $35,734, more than triple second-place contender Rutter’s $10,400 and miles ahead of Jennings’ $4800. The human competitors are going to have their work cut out for them in the final faceoff tonight, though looking at Watson’s overall performance in round two, this contest is pretty much over.

The supercomputer tripped up a couple of times last night, notably when it bid $6435 on and got the response wrong after misreading the clue. “In May 2010 5 paintings worth $125 million by Braque, Matisse & 3 others left Paris’ museum of this art period,” the clue read. Watson replied “Picasso,” naming one of the three other artists whose paintings were stolen (the other two were Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Leger) when, of course, the response being sought was the rest of the museum’s name, “Modern Art.”

Twice last night the supercomputer repeated a wrong answer delivered by a quicker-to-the-buzzer competitor. Watson also had trouble in general with the art-related clues. Didn’t Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s android Data struggle with such things as well? Computers and creative thinking clearly do not go well together.

Watson also failed to answer correctly during Final Jeopardy, a clue asking them to name which U.S. city has one airport named after a World War II hero and another named after a World War II battle. “Toronto?????” the computer replied, which isn’t even a U.S. city. It bet only $947 though, which kept the final money tally far ahead of the other two competitors. Tonight’s third and final round will give Jennings and Rutter one last opportunity to gain the upper hand, but for now it’s looking like a victory for the machines of the world.

Showing 8 comments

3for5spotshooter at 11:40am 16th February 2011 The question is... How many hours of human work is required to make "HAL" answer each question from "his' data base? I just am not very Space Odyssey afraid of this.... Seems like... sort of a turn of the 20th century dancing bear curio act.....
BarryDeer at 11:13am 16th February 2011 My take on the IBM challenge is from my background of forty years in Machine Intelligence. If this is the wrong forum for my comments I am open to be directed to another appropriate site.
1. doobersnax at 7:38am 17th February 2011 Ok? Are you waiting for someone to ask you for your comments?
theronhayden at 5:51am 16th February 2011 does anyone know how watson's buzzer algorithm works? how does it know when to hit the buzzer?
theronhayden at 5:44am 16th February 2011 it is pretty obvious that the questions were easier than a regular jeopardy episode. i got about 80% of them correct and i can never do that well in double jeopardy. perhaps if there were harder questions it would've been more impressive. jeopardyfan - i totally agree with you. it was sad to watch kenjen and rut humiliated by a buzzer problem. seems like watson's answer are practically instantaneous.
jeopardyfan at 5:18am 16th February 2011 I also didn't care for it taking 2 days to play one game. If they wanted to in essence make an IBM commercial perhaps they should have purchased time during the Super Bowl.
jeopardyfan at 5:18am 16th February 2011 Don't get me wrong. I am very impressed with IBM's technology. However, it would be more entertaining to allow Ken and Brad play each other and perhaps have the screen show whether or not Watson got the right answer. The playing field doesn't seem even when the humans can't even buzz in. You could see the frustration on their faces. I know I was frustrated. How humiliating to stand there and look like an idiot simply because you can't beat a computer on the signal device.
analyst0806 at 4:56am 16th February 2011 Being quicker to the buzzer seems to be Watson's main advantage over the challengers. Jennings & Rutter were rarely able to beat Watson to the buzzer and there were fewer long pauses to the buzzer than an average Jeopardy! game. It would be more interesting if Watson had a 1-second delay or a human buzzer pusher. After watching last night, I left with the impression of watching a cheap carny side-show trick not an impressive new technology.