I've done a little research this morning just to get a little background on Watson, if this seems inaccurate it could be because a lot of this research involved computer related terms that mean nothing to me. Here is what I have taken from my research. Watson is a supercomputer built by IBM. Watson was named after IBM's founder Thomas Watson and was developed as part of the DeepQA Research Project. For Watson to be able to play on Jeopardy it took 7 years of research and planning, and multiple practice rounds. Watson had to be programmed to understand the natural language process so it could compete against other contestants. Watson is not connected to the internet and goes off information that has been stored in its system. It uses clues from the questions to find the answer. An ensemble of algorithms help to gather and score evidence. Watson is programmed not to buzz in until it reaches a confidence level of at least 50 percent. On the avatar if Watson is feeling confident about its answer, there will be green lines swirling. Watson can learn things as he goes along, which allows him to basically get smarter the more he plays the game.
Watson competes against former Jeopardy contestants Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, who are basically the best of the best. Last night Watson tied Brad Rutter for first place. Watson will be playing again tonight and then tomorrow night as well. I really recommend that you watch this because it's fascinating!!! It's just crazy how far technology keeps advancing! Here's a website where you can learn all about Watson: http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/.
Below is a video of some of Watson's practice rounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment