Two champion contestants on a popular American quiz show have been easily beaten by a
computer. The IBM machine, named Watson, won in three special editions of Jeopardy. One
of the men it defeated holds the Jeopardy record of 74 straight wins. Tom Burridge reports.
Jeopardy is one of America’s oldest and most popular quiz shows. But this time, inside the
brightly-lit studio, a contest billed as ‘man versus machine’ – the programme’s producers
pitted two of their most successful contestants ever against a computer. Known as Watson,
the computer is a giant piece of hardware, equivalent in size to several fridges. And over three
programmes, Watson beat his human contenders with ease.
In a split-second, Watson is able to digest the question and try and match it against huge
amounts of information it has at its disposal. It very quickly assesses how good a match it
thinks it has and buzzes either very quickly, or not so quickly, reflecting how confident it is
that it has the right answer.
Watson is also able to notice nuances in language, between say ‘bat’ the animal and ‘bat’ used
in sports. On a prime-time US TV show with millions of viewers it was great publicity for
IBM. But the company says Watson the computer is an IT genius and a breakthrough in
computing.
Tom Burridge, BBC News

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