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Alex Trebek (Official Thread of Jeopardy)

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Day 2 totals (I only saw the last question of the day):

Jennings - $4800
Brad Whoever - $10,400
Watson - $35,734

The final answer, category US Cities, was "Its largest airport is named for a World War II hero; its second largest, for a WWII battle"

Both humans got it right (I knew it, living in Chicago), but Watson said "Toronto???????" - an dwagered less than $1000, with a lead of over $30,000 going in.

Seriously, computer? Toronto is a US City?
 
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MililaniBuckeye;1874623; said:
Pfththth, everyone knows you only use "an" before a vowel or vowel-sounding consonant. Since dawgered starts with a d, it's "a drwagered"...stupid human.
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I was obviously typing at Watson speed. :tongue2:
 
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This contest only proves that "Watson" can press the answer button before his two human counterparts. However on reflection perhaps Watson was assembled in the Southeastern United States.....Hmmm, can you say SEC speed!!!!!!:biggrin:
 
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Wingate1217;1875015; said:
This contest only proves that "Watson" can press the answer button before his two human counterparts. However on reflection perhaps Watson was assembled in the Southeastern United States.....Hmmm, can you say SEC speed!!!!!!:biggrin:
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That's what I was thinking when I watched a clip. It doesn't necessarily know more answers than the human contestants, but its perfect timing on the buzzer gives it a huge advantage.
 
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Buckeye86;1875016; said:
That's what I was thinking when I watched a clip. It doesn't necessarily know more answers than the human contestants, but its perfect timing on the buzzer gives it a huge advantage.
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It can also speed-read the entire clue instantly when it's revealed.

I've always thought that they should reveal the answer at a steady pace, one word at a time at spoken-word speed, and allow the contestants to buzz in at any time, with the buzzer stopping the process of revealing the words. Somebody buzzing in when the clue is half-read (and half-displayed) would not get to see the remainder of the clue.

That makes processing the information and recalling the answer the important factors, rather than just being able to speed-read the clue to get extra time to think and then have the proper timing when they open the buzzer at the end of Trebek's reading the clue.
 
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According to this, Watson gets a written message with the answer (which is really the question) at the same time the contestants can see it.

Which makes the timing of when to buzz at the end of the clue reading way too important, which has always been my main complaint with the show.

Link

? Watson cannot time its buzz-in to the reading of a clue or "buy time." While playing "Jeopardy!" contestants can buzz in when a light goes on after host Alex Trebek stops reading the clue (click early on your button and you're penalized a crucial quarter-second). Watson does not have speech recognition software that allows it to "hear" Trebek; instead, clues are transmitted electronically to the machine, so it gets to "see" a clue the same time that a contestant does.

Due to concerns that Watson could beat humans to the buzzer, IBM hooked Watson up to a signaling device that requires a physical pressing of a button, the same as human players. Ultimately in this setup, however, the advantage goes to us air-breathers because we can time our buzz-in to Trebek's clue reading.

"The reaction time of a machine is faster than a human, but that's not what matters in "Jeopardy!" ? what matters is timing," said IBM's David Gondek, a researcher on the Watson project. "The best players read the clue, try to determine when Alex will finish reading, and then buzz in."

Gondek said that "Watson is a strong buzzer, but Watson is not anticipating Alex's reading, it is reacting to a signal. A human can come in before Watson."

Also, as mentioned above, Watson is not programmed to buzz in until it has high confidence in an answer; a human can buzz in, though, and by rule have five seconds to work with before having to provide an answer. Human players, in other words, can take a risk and buy themselves time to come up with an answer, which is not a bad gambit if the category is an area of familiarity. Watson does not have this strategic luxury.

Cont'd ...
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picture.php


Jennings' chat transcript with the WashPo...

LINK

Ken Jennings said:
Hey, this is Ken Jennings, resident carbon-based contestant on Jeopardy this week playing IBM's Watson uber-computer. Looking forward to answering your questions!

...cont...
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jennings-ibm-550x328.jpg
 
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