The Wonder of Watson
As the father of artificial intelligence, Alan Turing surely would be impressed with IBM’s new supercomputer. Watson, as it’s called, will compete next month on Jeopardy, the popular television game show.
A practice round last week gained lots of media attention and speculation about the future of computer science. Watson, named for IBM founder Thomas Watson, beat two of the greatest Jeopardy contestants ever during a brief practice session.
Not surprisingly, reaction to Watson includes people who are impressed and others who might best be described as scared. Either way, buzz about Watson will only increase in the weeks leading up to the computer’s broadcast debut on February 14th.