# Jeopardy! Champs vs. Computer **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 14, 2011, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340 "2011-02-14T18:48:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/161 "2011-02-17T01:59:13Z")
> [@gonzoron](#): > > Scary thought: The room-sized computers of the 60’s weren’t as powerful as todays ipods. How long until Watson’s room-sized HW fits in your pocket and costs under $100. My question is, although the hardware might cost $100 someday, wouldn’t a commercial product have to license all the intellectual property – encyclopedias plus thousands if not millions of books? We’ve seen how hard and expensive it is for a TV show to get clearances to use music – I wonder if a MyWatson device would have to jump the same hurdles. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/162 "2011-02-17T02:37:44Z")
> [@whitetho](#): > > My question is, although the hardware might cost $100 someday, wouldn’t a commercial product have to license all the intellectual property – encyclopedias plus thousands if not millions of books? We’ve seen how hard and expensive it is for a TV show to get clearances to use music – I wonder if a MyWatson device would have to jump the same hurdles. This article saws Watson usually uses public domain sources like Project Gutenberg etc, but it did have some licensed material. [http://www.infoworld.com/t/business-intelligenceanalytics/how-ibms-watson-hammered-its-jeopardy-foes-798](http://www.infoworld.com/t/business-intelligenceanalytics/how-ibms-watson-hammered-its-jeopardy-foes-798) > [@](#): > > She points out that the entire corpus of information is built out of largely natural language sources, including licensed Beatles lyrics. Watson is completely self-contained and does not have access to the Internet during the game. “We do have things from Project Gutenberg,” explains Chu-Carroll. “Things like Wikipedia. But primarily free text that is available to us: dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspaper articles, things that…cover ‘Jeopardy’ topics well.” > > Unlike Google and its Books project, IBM chose to obey licensing rules. “If we don’t have a license, we don’t have it,” notes Chu-Carroll. Nor did IBM include any structure from CYC, a controversial artificial intelligence project designed to categorize much of human knowledge in a structured database. Most of the information used by Watson is plain text searched by the computer. I notice that most of the time when you do a Google search, it has a cached copy of the page. How does Google handle the IP issues? Is there a flag that indicates the page has copyrighted material and Google shouldn’t cache it? ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/163 "2011-02-17T03:31:16Z")
“I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords” - Ken Jennings Words that will live in infamy. Yes, the criticisms about Watson’s edge in buzzing in are entirely legitimate and probably the main flaw in this whole stunt, but that was still a pretty marvelous thing to witness. It’s an amazing time to be alive. ---
**Author:** ![Indyellen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/indyellen/32/4176_2.png) [@Indyellen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indyellen)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/164 "2011-02-17T03:36:21Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > “I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords” - Ken Jennings This cracked me up when I was watching. I know it’s an Internet meme, not an SDMB meme, but it made me wonder… ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/165 "2011-02-17T03:46:00Z")
It seems like they could’ve made it more fair to the humans by feeding Watson the question, say, 2-3 seconds after the clue was revealed, roughly the same amount of time it takes for a human to read it. That way they’d all start thinking at the same time, and his buzz in time might be a little longer and give the humans a better shot. He seemed much less dominant in today’s game though than double jeopardy of the first game. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/166 "2011-02-17T03:52:02Z")
Like so many other memes, it’s originally from _The Simpsons_. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/167 "2011-02-17T04:58:29Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > It seems like they could’ve made it more fair to the humans by feeding Watson the question, say, 2-3 seconds after the clue was revealed, roughly the same amount of time it takes for a human to read it. That way they’d all start thinking at the same time, and his buzz in time might be a little longer and give the humans a better shot. > > He seemed much less dominant in today’s game though than double jeopardy of the first game. But humans don’t start thinking after they read the question. A good Jeopardy player is firing all neurons while he scans each word, which is exactly what Watson does. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/168 "2011-02-17T05:29:39Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > It appears they neglected to program Watson to react to other contestant’s wrong answers. Seems like a bit of an oversight. > [@bouv](#): > > Watson can’t “hear,” so he doesn’t “know” when another contestant gets an answer wrong. [snip] > > So the programmers knew going in to it that this was a possibility…there’s really no way to avoid it. > [@Munch](#): > > Actually, they did come up with a solution. On the NOVA episode last week, they covered Watson for the entire episode. This came up - someone types in and sends any given answers to Watson. Apparently whoever was in charge of that probably didn’t get it in in time. > > Oddly enough, the examples they gave on NOVA on the sort of questions that trips Watson up was a category on…decades! He really didn’t know what sort of answers were being looked for. > [@Munch](#): > > It could also be that the Jeopardy producers decided to not allow that and see how well Watson could do on its own. Actually, Watson wasn’t given other contestants’ wrong answers, he was given their \*correct \*answers, so he could use them to learn what kind of answer was expected. I agree with the others here who say that it should have been possible to use voice recognition to keep him from duplicating incorrect answers. But for some reason they chose not to implement that. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/169 "2011-02-17T10:09:22Z")
> [@Indyellen](#): > > This cracked me up when I was watching. I know it’s an Internet meme, not an SDMB meme, but it made me wonder… Made you wonder what? If Ken Jennings was a nerd that loves The Simpsons? I think that ship has sailed. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_Astronaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bad\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/170 "2011-02-17T10:24:54Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > I Guess the final outcome was no surprise but Watson took a very big risk on final Jeopardy. He could have won by betting 0. Instead he bet $17k. There was no risk involved - Watson bet an amount that guaranteed he would win the two-day competition by $1 even if he got Final Jeopardy wrong and Ken got it right and bet everything. In a normal money game this would be a better strategy than betting $0 even though they both guarantee a win. In this case there is no advantage either way, but it makes sense to stick to the standard strategy. ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/171 "2011-02-17T12:35:55Z")
I bet it felt good for Ken to beat Brad Rutter. He was pretty well whipped by him in the Ultimate TOC, so this had to be a nice victory, especially how he was neck and neck with Watson throughout the whole second game while Brad sat on the sidelines. I’m sure both Brad and Ken knew 98% of the clues, but it’s amazing that Watson was able to get the answer to so many of them fast enough to be able to use that quick buzzer to beat out the best in the show’s history. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/172 "2011-02-17T12:38:56Z")
Here’s an [article](http://www.slate.com/id/2284721/) by Ken Jennings at [slate.com](http://slate.com). > [@](#): > > Watson has lots in common with a top-ranked human Jeopardy! player: It’s very smart, very fast, speaks in an uneven monotone, and has never known the touch of a woman. ---
**Author:** ![dauerbach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@dauerbach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dauerbach)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/173 "2011-02-17T13:46:06Z")
It seemed to me that on the last day of play (yesterday) Watson was not the first to ring in to a much greater extent than the first two days, and also that on those clues he was frequently (based on what was shown on the tv screen). Is this just poor memory on my part or did something change. Perhaps his strategy was tweaked, or they chose categories they thought would be harder for him. Did anyone else think things were a little different? ---
**Author:** ![dauerbach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@dauerbach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dauerbach)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/174 "2011-02-17T14:14:11Z")
Perusing Ken Jennings website, it seems that my interpretation of last night was shaded by the fact that Watson had no clue that the category “Actors as directors” required him to simply name the director of the given film. Instead of easily winning every question he was shut out. And his guesses, based on his top three considerations, seemed stupid and random. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/175 "2011-02-17T14:21:28Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Here’s an [article](http://www.slate.com/id/2284721/) by Ken Jennings at [slate.com](http://slate.com). I become more and more convinced every day that when Trebek finally retires the producers will ask Ken Jennings to become the new host of Jeopardy. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/176 "2011-02-17T14:28:22Z")
> [@dauerbach](#): > > It seemed to me that on the last day of play (yesterday) Watson was not the first to ring in to a much greater extent than the first two days, and also that on those clues he was frequently (based on what was shown on the tv screen). Is this just poor memory on my part or did something change. Perhaps his strategy was tweaked, or they chose categories they thought would be harder for him. Did anyone else think things were a little different? Just random variations. As Ken said in the WashPo chat linked to above, the game material (sets of answers and questions) was randomly selected from material prepared for regular shows, except that audio and video clues were excluded. Ever since the game show scandals of the 1950s, the handling of game show information has been regulated by Federal law, so there’s no chance in this game (or any other broadcast TV game show) that categories or questions were changed to help or hinder a contestant. For the same reason, and because of the adverse publicity that would have been generated, I’m quite sure that IBM didn’t “tweak” Watson after they started taping the games. In any case, there wouldn’t have been time. I’m sure they taped both games in a single session, with only a short break between them. As anyone who’s been on the show can tell you, they are very serious about making sure that contestants have no way to find out about the material in advance. The show has two classes of staffers: those who have contact with the material and those who don’t. The former are the writers, producers, directors, and the studio staff like camera operators and sound men. The others are the contestant coordinators. As a contestant, you are only allowed to have contact with the latter group, and they make it very clear that you’re not allowed to talk to anyone but them. One of them has to be with you at all times when you’re there in the studio complex for the taping. Yes, even in the bathroom. I was on 20 years ago (almost exactly). Can any recent Jeopardy contestant tell us if they have more stringent measures now to prevent electronic assistance? I assume they must take your cell phone away, or tell you to leave it at home. Do they frisk you to check you don’t have any hidden devices? ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/177 "2011-02-17T14:30:47Z")
It did seem to me that Watson consistently did better on longer questions - probably because it had more time to come up with an answer between when the question was sent to it, and when the buzzer could be pressed. Shorted questions seemed to give the humans more of an advantage. I also find it amusing that Watson seems to have no idea what keys are on a computer keyboard, I don’t think it got a single question from that category right. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/178 "2011-02-17T14:42:21Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > I become more and more convinced every day that when Trebek finally retires the producers will ask Ken Jennings to become the new host of Jeopardy. Who, of course, will not need the podium, nor the answers ahead of time. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/179 "2011-02-17T14:44:39Z")
> [@AndrewL](#): > > I also find it amusing that Watson seems to have no idea what keys are on a computer keyboard, I don’t think it got a single question from that category right. No, Watson did not get any of those questions right. He wasn’t able to link up the concepts. Teasing out hints and handling wordplay were a problem for him. He didn’t get any of the One Buck or Less clues either, and I remember some of his guesses were way off. He was also totally clueless on “The New Yorker’s 1959 review of this said in its brevity & clarity it is “unlike most such manuals, a book, as well as a tool.”” [I didn’t know the answer, but Watson said “What is Dorothy Parker” - he didn’t get they were looking for a book.](http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3577) Interesting that Ken was able to make the second game competitive, and I loved the Simpsons reference. There’s a geek I can relate to. ---
**Author:** ![dauerbach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@dauerbach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dauerbach)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340/180 "2011-02-17T14:47:11Z")
Right. Once again it is only my memory but I think that Watson was skunked in both the computer keyboard category and actors as directors. Each had shorter than normal clues, but the main problem for the computer was never figuring out the context of the clues. I also think that the advantage of always being able to be the first to ring in was insurmountable. I think that if they had programmed in a human like delay to this that he would not have won. That being said, he did do impressively. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-champs-vs-computer/571340.md?page=10)