Watson wins 'Jeopardy!' finale; Ken Jennings welcomes 'our new computer overlords'

"Jeopardy!" has a new champion, and its name is Watson. During the Wednesday finale of the three-day "Jeopardy!" challenge that pitted all-stars Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter against an IBM-engineered supercomputer, the machine ultimately beat the men. Watson finished with $77,147, with Jennings coming in second with $24,000 and Brad Rutter last with $21,600.

The win is a publicity coup for IBM, which created Watson as part of its Great Mind Challenge series. The company hopes to sell Watson’s question-answering technology for use in hospitals and call center help desks. The last time IBM created a man-versus-machine challenge of this scale, it built Deep Blue, the chess-playing supercomputer that beat champ Garry Kasparov.

Watson had a huge advantage going into the final match, with a lead of more than $20,000 over Rutter, then in second place. Though it missed a Daily Double answer regarding "The Elements of Style," it showed its versatility later, buzzing in correctly on everything from "The Simpsons" to halter tops.

Watson also won Wednesday night’s Final Jeopardy round, offering the correct answer to a clue asking which author's most famous novel was inspired by William Wilkinson's "An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia." Watson, Jennings and Rutter all knew the answer was Bram Stoker.

Ken Jennings, ever a good sport, bowed to the new "Jeopardy!" champ. “I for one welcome our new computer overlords,” he wrote on his video screen, quoting an episode of “The Simpsons."

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— Melissa Maerz

Photo: Ken Jennings, Watson and Brad Rutter on "Jeopardy!" Credit: Carol Kaelson / Associated Press.

Comments

[Artquest]

I watched some of this and wouldn't give Watson the win. Clearly you can see that Jennings and Rutter had the answers. They just couldn't buzz in fast enough. So the computer has faster "reflexes", not being burdened by the human nervous system and whatnot, but I wouldn't say it won.

[Michael]

"The company hopes to sell Watson’s question-answering technology for use in hospitals and call center help desks. " So... watson wins, IBM wins and the rest of us lose when calling a hospital front desk and we get a computer instead of a human? I think Andy Richter had it right (see Mon. night Conan O'Brien episode.)

[Random]

Artquest is completely correct. If you closely watch each competitor during the show, especially the side angles, you can see that Ken and Brad buzz in at almost every question. However, the majority of the questions go to Watson because of his faster reflexes. A better game to pit Watson's strength would be to have final jeopardy each question but with only 6 seconds. This allows for knowledge instead of just "reflexes".

[palmstring]

That reminds me: If Steven Jobs retires from Apple for health reasons, shall Watson take over IBM for technological ideas?

[Johnny]

Pretty sure it was rigged. According to the previews they were saying Watson would be answering using voice recognition. However, at the beginning of Monday's show, Alex Trebek said Watson would be receiving the clues via text file.

[Longcat]

Re:
Michael

Actually we'll all win when we call a help desk and the computer (who can actually read and write) tells us what we want to know without putting us on hold or giving attitude.

[Johanna Sayre]

Building Watson is a tremendous achievement of team members. But the comparison with humans was a cheap gimmick. There is no even playing field, and the 'performance' became annoying. Feeding Watson info. differs so vitally from his human co-players' method that henceforth we are comparing apples and oranges. Of course Watson is faster. Mathematics could forecast that a long time ago and, no doubt, did. The humans knew all the answers. Even I, very old, knew all but three answers Tue night. What is my problem? I am very slow. Watching Ken Jennings was very painful: he could not press his button fast enough comensurate to Watson. He tried so hard. I am sure B. Rutter was in a similar situation. So what was who measuring? What for and what was it worth? An interesting point came when Watson disregarded 'US cities' Tue night and went to Toronto., Ca. Attention slip or that place in Ohio?

How much does Watson's speed, of the kind displayed these three days, matter to hospital info?? Hardly. Speed of correct responses and information, Yes, the speed displayed here, pretty superfluous.
So not to detract from the great achievement of the team(s), this game was more gimmick than anything else. Jeopardy should give us games with Ken, Brad and other bright humans as a reward, and all concerned should address the results, unequal base, etc. of this experiment.
Thank you

[Jane Elmer]

I have enjoyed the show for many years and especially enjoyed Ken Jennings. I don't like the computer vs people thing at all. Thought I would - I don't. It appears to be simply a put down for two very intelligent people. I don't think it is worthy of the show. I hope you don't continue to utilize "watson". I'll resume watching when it is over. Thank you.

[Susan]

He's no Wall-e.

[Mike]

I think a purpose of Watson could be a type of search engine accessed through a personal computer. In order to not make this a big deal that will lose interest like the human genome project (this could of course still have a major breakthrough), IBM should maximize their earning potential. The supercomputer could in theory be a giant corporation. I am a student and would love to hear what the actual plans are along with expectations of advancements in the machine understanding concepts. A reply would be great if you all have the time.

[Hans]

Well, what really happened is that a team of people from IBM beat the two Jeopardy champions with a lot of prep work and by using an expensive machine. That's a very impressive achievement and something that will go into computer history.

We talk to computers today when we call help desks - no Watson needed. Watson's successor will eventually (maybe many years from now) allow someone with little money to talk to a machine that has the knowledge of the best doctors on the planet. If the game show tonight wasn't impressive enough, then that will be.

[Pino]

@Artquest
The flaw in your logic is that Watson won't buzz in until it has an answer ready that it is confident in. It doesn't buzz in first and then think of the answer (like some players try to do). Yes, Jennings and Rutter most likely knew every answer that Watson scored with, but they all had the same time frame to hone in on it and attempt to buzz in when the buzz-in window opened.

I also think that you aren't appreciating the amazing technology behind the computing that Watson is doing every time it tries to find an answer. It's not like copying and pasting the question into Google and returning the top hit. It actually analyzes the relationships of the words in the question (just as the human contestants do) to essentially find an ideal solution. The word "Apple" could mean anything from a fruit to a technology company, but using context clues to understand it is impressive and why Watson deserves the win.

[Joseph]

Sure are a lot of people eager to dismiss this achievement. When a computer finally beat the best human chess player in the world, and brought us one step closer to true A.I., I remember a lot of dismissals. Oh, of course a computer could do it because blah blah blah. But until it happened, it had never happened before. We had to build the damn computer capable of beating a human. In fact, prior to that, everyone said a computer could never beat the best chess players because it lacked creativity. But who needs creativity when you can brute force your way through? A win is a win. And now history repeats itself.

Oh, and Random, if they did it the way you suggested, it wouldn't be Jeopardy!, now, would it? It would be a different kind of trivia game.

As they say, haters gonna hate.

[mickeba]

Thanks IBM! Lets say hello to higher unemployment. "Watson" is all about increasing various corporate bottom lines, by reducing unnecessary human expenses like wages and benefits and personnel uniforms. Who needs those pesky humans, when we have "Watson". A sad day really.

[2centsworth]

Big Mistake. The computer made many mistakes. If we can't depend on it why use it?

[Mike]

"I watched some of this and wouldn't give Watson the win. Clearly you can see that Jennings and Rutter had the answers."

That's Jeopardy. When Jennings was on his 74-game streak, HE was the one with faster reflexes than his opponents. Did they say he should slow down? No. Jennings and Rutter have both said that in Jeopardy, for nearly every question, all contestants know the right answer. It's just down to who buzzes in first.

And consider this. Watson always takes around 2-3 seconds to process the information, with very little variance. That means that when Trebek read a clue that is very very short (one or two words, taking a second or less to read), like there were many of in the final game, Jennings or Rutter had already given their answer before Watson could display its top three choices.

Also keep in mind that Watson cannot anticipate or guess. If Ken thought he would get a clue right purely based on the category, he could buzz in and then come up with the answer AFTER buzzing. Also, he can anticipate when he would be able to buzz in, which he is very good at, and sneak in before anyone. Watson can do neither of these things. He can only buzz in after it is confident in its answer, and it has to wait for the buzz signal.

Don't take the points system too seriously. The point was the demonstration that Watson, a computer system, could answer tricky Jeopardy questions as accurately and in as little time as the best Jeopardy players, which is quite an accomplishment.

[Auctioneer]

I'm very impressed by the ability of Watson

[Ed McCann]

Ken Jennings was not quoting from 'The Simpsons'; he was alluding to the episode in which Kent Bachman, seeing magnified ants in the space capsule in which Homer is riding, says 'I for one welcome our insect overlords.' This could be a nice Jeopardy question.

[Gordon M]

Well two things can definitely be said about Watson:
1. He can't tell us how he felt about winning.
2. He'll never get the joke.
What I remember from what I have learned is part intellect and part emotion. It's the emotional side that makes learning exciting. There is also the excitement of challenge. What I have knowledge of today, no one input it in me. I wanted to experience learning. That's why I will never feel threatened by a machine. It will never be human.

[Grandpa]

Unappealing, my dear Watson.