IBM Software To Challenge Humans On Jeopardy!

Jeopardy!

Twelve years after an IBM supercomputer called Deep Blue defeated World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov, IBM's new Question Answering (QA) system code-named "Watson" promises to be the next round in the battle of wits between man and machine.

The producers of Jeopardy!, the game show where contestants are given clues and must phrase their answers in the form of a question, announced that they would produce an episode of the show pitting Watson against human contestants, but no date was disclosed. Jeopardy! is produced by Sony Pictures Television and distributed by CBS Television Distribution.

IBM has been working on Watson, presumably named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson Sr., for nearly two years, the company said. The QA system can understand complex questions and answer with enough speed and precision to compete with people on the game show.

The challenge for the QA system on Jeopardy! will be understanding the questions because of the broad range of subject matter -- everything from history, science and literature to politics and pop culture -- and because the clues often include riddles, irony and other subtle hints. The system will be capable of handling semantics (the meanings behind words), interpret ambiguous expressions and puns, identify relevant and irrelevant content, decompose questions into sub-questions and synthesize a logical answer.

While the Watson system has the advantage of incorporating massively parallel processing analysis technology, it will not be connected to the Internet and -- as with the human contestants -- will have to rely on its own stored knowledge to compete, according to IBM. The system will compute a statistical confidence number for the responses it provides.

IBM said its creation of Watson is part of its effort to develop leading-edge business intelligence, analysis and data management technology that businesses can use to sort through huge volumes of data to find the information they need for making decisions.

Jeopardy! is no stranger to the IT realm. In January, 11 episodes of the show were filmed on the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.