IBM computer taking on ‘Jeopardy!’ champs for $1M
It’s the size of 10 refrigerators, and it swallows encyclopedias whole, but an IBM computer was lacking one thing it needed to battle the greatest champions from the “Jeopardy!” quiz show.
It couldn’t hit a buzzer.
But that’s been fixed, and on Thursday the hardware and software system named Watson was to play a practice round against Ken Jennings, who won a record 74 consecutive “Jeopardy!” games in 2004-05, and Brad Rutter, who won a record of nearly $3.3 million in prize money.
“‘Jeopardy!’ felt that in order for the game to be as fair as possible, just as a human has to physically hit a buzzer, the system also would have to do that,” IBM spokeswoman Jennifer McTighe said. “Now Watson has its own real buzzer.”
The practice round was to be played on a stage at an IBM research center in Yorktown Heights, 38 miles north of Manhattan and across the country from the game show’s home in Culver City, Calif. A real contest among the three, to be televised Feb. 14-16, also will be played at IBM, but the date hasn’t been made public.
That is great news! People always ask me how I know so many interesting facts and I tell them from watching ‘Jeopardy’.