Thursday, January 13, 2011

Man vs. Machine: Jeopardy style

I  definitely am going to watch this.  We'll see how it plays out, and find out information about how the computer was programmed in the meantime. In the 1990s. then world chess champion  Gary Kasparov famously beat an IBM computer in a much watched - and amazing - performance.  But then, the computer was reprogrammed with a more Kasparov-focused approach to chess, and the computer won.  That caused many to cry foul, because the idea was could a computer simply programmed to beat anyone beat the best?  The computer that finally did Kasparov in had been reprogrammed to beat, well, Kasparov.  Others, of course, said it was fair since any opponent worth his or her salt would study someone like Kasparov in advance.

Still, this will be fun to watch.  Hopefully the computer has been programmed in general, not to defeat the two Jeopardy champs.  The big question is, will the computer be able to get wrong answers, or simply will the contestants have to be faster.  We'll see. 

1 comment:

  1. I can't wait. I think it will be fun to watch. Yes I too am currious about the programming but in today's world of AI (artificial intellegence) it may be that the computer can make mistakes- dont' know about that one. Fun Stuff indeed!

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