As the story unfolds, Super Watson takes the lead! The second night of the IBM Challenge seen on ABC’s hit game show Jeopardy amazed viewers yet again. At the start of the show, Alex Trebek offered yet again and synopsis of IBM’s Grand Challenge and how Watson was invented.
While the whole challenge is amusing to watch and interesting from a technological standpoint, it seems like a gloried advertisement for IBM.
Last night, Tuesday February 15, IBM’s genius scientific computer played against past winner Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. The computer managed to bring in a total of $35,734 in the past two nights of the event, proving IBM’s invention is working well.
Answering 14/15 questions correct, Watson managed to surpass both Ken and Brad. Not only was answering correctly essential in Watson’s lead, but responding quickly was to ‘its’ advantage. Ken and Brad had a very hard time at keeping up with Watson’s speed.
Throughout the show, Watson managed to land on two Daily Doubles, offering interesting wagers. Unfortunately, Watson answered Final Jeopardy incorrectly.
The clue was: “Its largest airport is named for a World War II hero; its second largest, for a World War II battle” both Ken and Brad answered correctly with, “What is Chicago?”
Watson, on the other hand, who bet only $947 (an interesting amount yet again) answered wrong, “What is Toronto?????” The question marks simply implied that the computer was in fact stumped. Only having wagered $947, Watson won. Tonight will be the final event, rounding out the IBM Challenge. The winner takes home 1 million dollars, well not literally.
If IBM’s Watson does in fact win, all winnings will be donated to charity. As for Ken and Brad, half of the winnings will go to charity. Seems like this challenge is definitely taking on a new meaning of Jeopardy.
By: Lauren Fleishman