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In the most important clash of humans vs. machines IBM's supercomputer consisting of 6000 powerful PCs today defeated two all time Jeopardy champions handily.

In an impressive demonstration of artificial intelligence Watson made humans turn from grins at his sometimes zany answers and strategy to amazement.  Skepticism has turned to wonderment.

Four years in development culminated in three days of competition with the best humanity has to offer.

Yesterday, the competition wasn’t even close, with Watson earning $35,734 and his human competitors earning a combined $15,200. Today though, humanity, specifically Ken Jennings, gave Watson a run for his money. At one point during the third day of competition, Jennings (a 74-time champion) was at $15,000 to Watson’s $11,673.

However, it wasn’t even close in the end; Watson earned a total of $77,147. Jennings collected $24,000 in three days of competition, while never before defeated Brad Rutter garnered $21,600.

It's a tour de force of computer programming, whereby the machine just got better and better over time. The machine learns with each tough match.

The reason Watson's performance was so impressive is because Jeopardy is such a subtle game.   We shrugged off IBM's Big Blue defeating the best chess master in the world because chess is a rule based game, but this is very, very different.  Watson can become in the near term a real partner in expanding the way humans interact with machines.  The goals are set.  What happened today is more important than placing a man on the moon.  This is beyond space exploration.

Hats off to IBM's Watson Research Labs for creating a new type of intelligence and let's welcome Watson into a tentative partnership with humans.

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Wednesday, February 16, 2011