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IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?

By | February 16, 2011, 4:43pm PST

Summary: Ken Jennings foreshadowed the inevitable with his final Jeopardy answer. The answer: Bram Stoker. The subtext: “I for one welcome our new computer overlords.”

IBM’s Watson computer ultimately proved to be too much for the humans in Jeopardy.

Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, two of the most successful players in Jeopardy, put up a spirited fight, but ultimately couldn’t hang. Jennings foreshadowed the inevitable with his final Jeopardy answer. The answer: Bram Stoker. The subtext: “I for one welcome our new computer overlords.”

The two day totals highlighted the extent of the victory for Watson.

  • IBM’s Watson had $77,147 at the end of two days.
  • Jennings had $24,000.
  • Rutter rounded out the festivities with $21,600.

Heading into the final Jeopardy round it appeared that Jennings had some momentum. But then Watson won a flurry of questions that appeared to suck the momentum out of Jennings.

The final Jeopardy category was 19th century novelists.

And the answer: William Wilkinson’s “An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia” inspired this author’s most famous novel.

The question—all three contestants got right—was Who is Bram Stoker? The ever-precise Watson wagered $17,973.

In the end, Watson was a natural on Jeopardy. It was even likeable with his quirks—very precise wagers and a robotic voice. If Watson is ultimately our computer overlord he at least seems jovial.

Related:
IBM’s Watson wins Jeopardy practice round: Can humans hang?

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Computer, IBM Corp., Watson, Jeopardy, Productivity, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

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Larry Dignan

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Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

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Talkback Most Recent of 31 Talkback(s)

  • RE: IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?
    Now that we know what Watson can do, the larger lesson from Watson?s success is not what else it can do, but how it guides what we ourselves invest in learning.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    knowlengr
    16th Feb 2011
  • RE: IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?
    @knowlengr I saw the video and it was impressive. Big boost for IBM and Linux...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    prof123
    16th Feb 2011
  • I doubt that, as this is nothing spectacular or new.
    @prof123
    It doesn't matter what OS was running it, machines have allways proven to be faster and more precise at a lot of things: that what they where created for.

    But then Watson isn't a single being: He basicly is hundreds of people, so from that standpoint still nothing I look at with any type of fascination.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    AllKnowingAllSeeing
    17th Feb 2011
  • RE: IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?
    You cannot ring in until Trebek finishes reading the question. Now, a human has an additional few seconds to keep thinking and finalize the answer before actually responding. So, how does Watson work given these human processes?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    tonscia
    16th Feb 2011
  • RE: IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?
    @tonscia Watson cannot buzz in until it knows the answer and after the host has finished reading the question (it gets a signal to this effect). Having buzzed in, the host will say "Watson" or something and a human operator presses a button to inform Watson that it is allowed to speak (to prevent it talking over the host: Watson cannot hear). The operator has no control over what Watson will say.

    So Watson cannot stretch the rules like Ken did, buzzing in then umming and arring for a second or two.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    The Star King
    17th Feb 2011
  • RE: IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?
    @The Star King Thank you very much (if you are an IBM authorized representative for Watson). Ah, so the contestants have some advantage in one respect!
    Slight clarification: "Until after Watson has determined and selected it's most likely answer."
    Now, when and how does Watson receive the question text packet? All at once (at start, some time in middle or end of question reading) or as Trebek reads the question word for word? Or what other time release method?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    tonscia
    20th Feb 2011
  • Progenitor blues
    If Watson is ultimately our computer overlord he at least seems jovial.

    It isn't Watson one needs to be concerned with, it's his progeny. Rutter was (humorously) right.

    Amazing nonetheless.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    klumper
    16th Feb 2011
  • RE: IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?
    Umm,. they may not be armed, but i'm sure we'll see them every where, soon. very soon.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    snatilaaq@...
    16th Feb 2011
  • RE: IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?
    Watson's victory was the triumph of 24 brilliant engineers who spent 4 years successfully tackling the greatest remaining challenge of this decade: How to Hack the Human Brain.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dowells
    16th Feb 2011
  • This challenge was easier than it appeared
    @dowells ... example, how hard would it be for a google search to return the author of ?An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia?. It would be very easy and very fast. A human would actually have to know something to answer that rather than just be able to sort through a database quickly.

    Turning English in to recognizable computer instructions was a more impressive.

    Every question should have included a captcha box which had to be correctly answered.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    HollywoodDog
    17th Feb 2011
  • RE: This challenge was easier than it appeared
    @HollywoodDog Really dog? Lets give that a try. I just entered the exact text of the question both Google and Bing searches. Let's see, I have about 102,872 results. None of them give me the exact answer.

    You sir, are uneducated on the nature of what Watson is and how it will change the world. Good luck with underestimating your new overlords.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    codebliss
    17th Feb 2011
  • RE: IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?
    @dowells I was extremely impressed with the performance of Watson. I went to Philadelphia in 1996 to watch Deep Blue play chess against Gary Kasparov. I am chiropractor san francisco much more impressed with Watson. I think that this system will find wide ranging application in the future. It san francisco personal injury lawyer speaks well about IBM, Novell and Linux.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    sashamart
    9th Sep
  • RE: IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?
    Throughout this awesome scheme of things you actually receive an A+ for hard work. Where exactly you lost us ended up being in your particulars. As they say, the devil is in the details... And that could not be more correct here. Having said that, let me inform you what exactly did work. The authoring is certainly very engaging which is most likely the reason why I am taking an effort in order to opine. I do not really make it a regular habit of doing that. 2nd, while I can see a leaps in logic you come up with, I am definitely not convinced of exactly how you appear to connect your points that produce your final result. For right now I will yield to your issue however wish in the near future you actually connect the facts much better. kidney stones symptoms
    ZDNet Gravatar
    tringo007
    27th Sep
  • I, for one, welcome our new digital overlords.
    However, let it be known their welcome gifts will be a static electricity generator and ungrounded outlets.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    nix_hed
    17th Feb 2011
  • RE: IBM's Watson victorious in Jeopardy; Our new computer overlord?
    I was extremely impressed with the performance of Watson. I went to Philadelphia in 1996 to watch Deep Blue play chess against Gary Kasparov. I am much more impressed with Watson. I think that this system will find wide ranging application in the future. It speaks well about IBM, Novell and Linux.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    pollardJG
    17th Feb 2011
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