Jeopardy!

[canuckinchile]

The computer is doing well tonight I bet it has to do with ringing in faster. The Beatles questions were easy.

[CCL]

I found the setup a bit annoying, only getting through the first round. So tomorrow they will do double and then final jeopardy. And Wednesday? A full show?
I did enjoy the computer and them showing how it gets/rates the answers. It was amusing when Ken answered a question wrong and Watson rung in and gave the same answer.

[canadian_angel]

I loved what Alex had to say too. "Ken already gave that answer!"

[norealityhere]

On the one hand, I'm glad to see IBM trying to regain their prior momentum with Watson, the computer.
On the other hand, I found the show on the boring side.
I like to see more questions and less talk from IBM about building the computer. There was way too much time devoted to that, IMO.

[norm]

What you got was a long IBM ad, with a little bit of Jeopardy sprinkled in. Expect more of the same tonight, with only double an dfinal Jeopardy. Wednesday will probably be the most watchable, with a full show.

The computer is doing pretty much what you would expect. It gets the straight-forward questions rights, like the Beatles questions, which are derived sole from the lyrics and gets the complex questions wrong, such as the double meaning words category.

One thing to watch for tonight is how Watson handles Final Jeopardy. A normal contestant usually factors in knowledge of the category and strategy in formulating their bet. Watson shouldn't have any categories where it feels fore confident or less confident. Because it's just a stack of servers with access to millions of documents, it's recall ability should be the same no matter what the topic. So, logically, it should be risking a lot. It won't be like those contestants who risk 0 when they don't know the category. We'll see though. If I were a computer I would just risk it all and see what happens. If you were following Watson's possible answers on screen, it was getting the majority correct.

[canadian_angel]

Kind of had to wonder what Watson's "strategy" was in his two daily double wagers. Also it was kind of funny to hear him say "I'll take a guess".

[canuckinchile]

He says guess when his percentage is under a certain number (50% maybe? I wasn't paying that close attention).

[Marlena_M]

I have to say I'm surprised at the comments here. Maybe because I'm a software developer with degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering I found the show to be incredibly intriguing, bordering on fascinating. The technology is awe inspiring. The way Watson "thinks" really impresses me. Taking in the clue/answer and going thru its processing to derive the question. I loved how Ken answered a question wrong and Watson came back with the same wrong answer. Of course! Watson can't hear anything that goes on so Watson has no idea what another contestant has already given as their answer... all Watson knows is there's another opportunity to ring in. I also liked how Watson went straight for the Daily Double... and then started mowing down all the same dollar value clues row by row. A human usually would not do that. A human would know what categories they would likely do best in, go there and drive straight down the column while avoiding categories they feel they have less knowledge about. Watson just has information and nothing saying "hey, I don't know a lot about this category so I'll stay away from it but I do know a LOT about that category so let me head there".

I loved the show... and loved all the background information about how Watson does what it does. I'm sure if none of that was provided people would complain there wasn't enough information and they didn't understand how it was happening.

I can't wait to watch tonight - and tomorrow night!

[mindy384]

You can see Ken getting frustrated because he cant ring/buzz in before Watson. Great idea and premise but not fun to watch a computer with precision timing beat the other two HUMANS almost every time because he is programmed to ring in exactly as the answer ends--its like trying to click a button faster than a machine can--at the end of the day the machines/computers will win because they are programmed to the exact millisecond to click the button.

Apparently Ken Jennings admitted to practicing his buzz response with one of his (then) young child's games. Arguably, he probably won a few of those 74 games by simply responding faster than the other contestants and being a seasoned vet with the system. It irritates me to watch Brad and Ken try to ring in and only get to respond 2 or 3 times per board.

[CCL]

You not-too-infrequently see contestants get annoyed when another (human) contestant repeatedly beats them to the ring-in so...not just an issue with Watson, though more of an issue than normally I guess. What bugs me more is that he jumps around the board a lot. That bugs me when the humans do it too though so...
Watson's answer for final jeopardy was bizarre...Toronto? That's not even an American city!?!!
I did find all the background on Watson interesting but also found it dragged a bit. It will be more interesting to see a straight-on game tomorrow.