Computer Program to Take On ‘Jeopardy!’

I.B.M. plans to announce Monday that it is in the final stages of completing a computer program to compete against human “Jeopardy!” contestants. If the program beats the humans, the field of artificial intelligence will have made a leap forward.

Clipped from: Artificial intelligence's next frontier: Jeopardy | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Artificial intelligence's next frontier: Jeopardy

Watson will be competing against humans on Jeopardy, the popular quiz show. IBM is hoping that Watson will be able to understand complex questions—presumably from Alex Trebek—and answer them fast enough to compete with humans.
The knowledge part of Jeopardy—history, culture, science and other topics—can be packed into Watson. What’s unclear is whether the system can get all the nuances of the clues.

Dave Ferrucci, IBM scientist and Watson project director, with his baby.

Clipped from: YouTube - IBM "Watson" System to Challenge Humans at Jeopardy!

Clipped from: IBM - Research: Jeopardy!

“Question Answering” is technology's next grand challenge

IBM's computing system — called a Question Answering (QA) system among computer scientists — has been under development for nearly two years. With the April 27 announcement, IBM's researchers plan to put it to the test in a machine versus human contest on the gold-standard quiz show. And, officials from Jeopardy! announced plans to produce a human vs. machine contest on the renowned show.
Code-named "Watson," the IBM computing system is being designed to rival the human mind's ability to determine precise answers to natural language questions and to compute accurate confidences in the answers. According to Dr. David Ferrucci, leader of the project team, "The confidence processing ability is key to winning at Jeopardy! and is critical to implementing useful business applications of Question Answering."
Watson will also incorporate massively parallel analytical capabilities and, just like human competitors, Watson will not be connected to the Internet or have any other outside assistance.

Clipped from: IBM - The DeepQA Project - United States

Competing at Jeopardy! is just the first step

As difficult as it will be for the Watson computing system to compete on the leading quiz show for brainy humans, the ultimate test will be to move beyond the Jeopardy! Challenge. The goal is to have computers start to interact in natural human terms across a range of applications and processes, understanding the questions that humans ask and providing answers that humans can understand and justify.

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Moving beyond the Jeopardy! competition, automatic Question Answering will help drive the future of business intelligence, analytics and information management, so that business and government decision makers will have the most cutting-edge capabilities for finding the precise information they need from the mountains of data they produce.

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2009-04-27

Watson -- IBM's Question and Answering System

Computer Program to Take On ‘Jeopardy!’

Artificial intelligence's next frontier: Jeopardy