IBM supercomputer challenges human Jeopardy champs

After the highly celebrated victory of supercomputer Deep Blue over chess guru Garry Kasparov in the 1990s, another IBM machine has commenced a new battle against humans in the quiz show Jeopardy. Watson, the computing system created by tech giant IBM, is currently tied with Jeopardy champion Brad Rutter after the first day of the three-day match, according to reports. The IBM machine is matching wits with Jeopardy’s two most successful contestants – Rutter and Ken Jennings – on February 14, 15, and 16. Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas Watson, was built to rival the ability of humans to answer questions posed in natural language with speed, accuracy and confidence. IBM said it put Watson on Jeopardy because the show provides the ultimate challenge since the game’s clues involve analyzing subtle meaning, irony, riddles, and other complexities in which humans excel and computers traditionally do not. “Watson’s ability to understand the meaning and context of human language, and rapidly process information to find precise answers to complex questions, holds enormous potential to transform how computers help people accomplish tasks in business and their personal lives," it said. IBM’s scientists have been quick to say that Watson does not actually think. “The goal is not to model the human brain," said David Ferrucci, who spent 15 years working at IBM Research on natural language problems and finding answers amid unstructured information. “The goal is to build a computer that can be more effective in understanding and interacting in natural language, but not necessarily the same way humans do it," he said. When a question is put to Watson, more than 100 algorithms analyze the question in different ways, and find many different plausible answers–all at the same time. Yet another set of algorithms ranks the answers and gives them a score. For each possible answer, Watson finds evidence that may support or refute that answer. So for each of hundreds of possible answers it finds hundreds of bits of evidence and then with hundreds of algorithms scores the degree to which the evidence supports the answer. The answer with the best evidence assessment will earn the most confidence. The highest-ranking answer becomes the answer. However, during a Jeopardy game, if the highest-ranking possible answer isn’t rated high enough to give Watson enough confidence, Watson decides not to buzz in and risk losing money if it’s wrong. The Watson computer does all of this in about three seconds. Watson, said IBM, will enable people to rapidly find specific answers to complex questions. “The technology could be applied in areas such as healthcare, for accurately diagnosing patients, to improve online self-service help desks, to provide tourists and citizens with specific information regarding cities, prompt customer support via phone, and more, it added. — Newsbytes.ph