IBM’s Jeopardy Playing Computer Watson Shows The Pros How It’s Done [Video]

by Jason Fitzpatrick on

Earlier this week IBM’s took their Jeopardy playing supercomputer Watson to play a practice round with two human (and accomplished) jeopardy players. Watson tears out of the gate and barely lets up on the beatings.

We don’t know about you, but we’ve been watching the Watson project with curiosity. Building a supercomputer to be a chess champion, for example, only requires that you have a computer powerful enough to calculate all the future permutations of the game and choose the best path of action. While that’s not a small task, certainly, building a computer to beat a verbal trivia game like Jeopardy where the questions and answers can be laced with the nuance of language is a pretty big challenge. The video below, from technology blog Endgadget, shows just what a super sleuth Watson really is:

Check out the link below for the full article at Endgadget, including additional pictures, an interview with IBM, and some background on the magic that makes Watson work.

Jason Fitzpatrick is a warranty-voiding DIYer who spends his days cracking opening cases and wrestling with code so you don't have to. If it can be modded, optimized, repurposed, or torn apart for fun he's interested (and probably already at the workbench taking it apart). You can follow him on if you'd like.