Supercomputer utterly destroys all-time champs on Jeopardy

Hotair ^ | 02/16/2011 | Allahpundit

[Sherman Logan]

I was on in 98 and they had recently moved to a new set in Culver City. Quite impressive, actually. The seating for the audience is kind of cheesy, though. Looked a bit like the bleachers at the homecoming game.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

My other two observations:

1)All three contestants can probably answer 80% of the questions, so it's all about the buzzer.

2) The buzzer is all about rhythm. If you get in the groove, you're hard to beat.

On my show, I was winning most of the game--blowing through whole categories in the first round, doing the "True Daily Double"-- but at the end of the second round I crashed and burned between another Daily Double and a high-dollar question where I just blurted out something stupid. I finished the round in third, but it was very tight--just a couple hundred bucks between all three. But these were the days when the other places didn't get money, only prizes, and second prize was an ugly bedroom set. So I bet it all and lost. I was pissed at myself, but the contestant coordinators were thrilled because I'd played the game well from a makin' TV point of view.

The funny thing is that, while I used to watch the show religiously, muttering the answers to myself until my wife harassed me into trying out, I'll bet I haven't watched it ten times since. It just doesn't interest me at all. It's not like I hold a grudge or anything. I think it's that watching the show is about fantasizing that it's you, and once you've done it, that fantasy is gone.

[boop]

Alex goes under the bleachers to his dressing room to change clothes and get the question sheet. He looks up pronunciation of words so can get them right. He has said in interviews that he knows the answers to most of the questions and said he would make a great contestant.

BTW, Rocky Schmidt, the guy who was one of those who selected me for the show was Alex's "personal assistant" at the time. Now he's the executive producer. Nice man. Very flamboyant.

[GATOR NAVY]

Yeah, I wondered about the button pushing too, that’s a really big part of the show.

[Revolting cat!]

A fair challenge would be if the computer programmers spent the same number of man hours preparing this piece of metal and plastic as the human contestants spent preparing themselves.

[ForGod'sSake]

At the risk of duplicating some information from not having read through the whole thread I'm going to chime in anyway. I watched the making of this computer's debut on one of the documentary channels. It took FOUR years and several trial runs before "Watson" was ready for prime time. The producers of Jeopardy weren't willing to allow Watson on until it could produce answers that were at least in the ball park. In the early going Watson, as often as not, would come up with answers that were totally unrelated to the subject matter.

After four years of work the IBM people were actually able to teach Watson learn on the job. He learned from his answers and also from the answers of the other contestants. Spooky. Like others have noted, the nuances of our language is not something that can easily be taught, it's almost something one has to grow up with.

In that light, it's a little comforting to realize we all know more than we think we know simply because it has become second nature to us, like the mangling we often do to the language.