Ken Jennings Is Awesome
02.17.11As expected, Watson the remorseless trivia machine annihilated Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in the final leg of the man-versus-computer contest on “Jeopardy.” Despite the result, Jennings — like a nerdy John Connor — struck a decisive blow for humanity’s superiority with the
parenthetical notation in his Final Jeopardy response. Let’s see a computer do THAT. What’s that? There’s no algorithm for the humorous application of “Simpsons” quotes? Well, tough microchips, HAL. I’m gonna go celebrate by feeling some emotions and giving myself a boner. Suck it, computers!
Anyway, I’ve made a lot of jokes about the robot apocalypse and whatnot this week, but there’s also, like, charitable stuff happening because of this:
Watson wins $1 million for its efforts, which will be split between World Vision, a relief and development charity, and World Community Grid, whose mission is to, as it sounds, create the world’s largest public computing grid.
Despite a barely there showing yesterday, Jennings bumped himself into second place today, for which he’ll collect $300,000–half of which, he says, is going to VillageReach to benefit remote villages in eastern Africa. Half of Rutter’s $200,000 is going to Lancaster, Pa.’s Community Foundation. [E!]
It’s good that some of the money’s going to remote villages in Africa, because that’s where we’ll want to be when World Community Grid becomes sentient and destroys every aspect of civilization reliant on computers. We’re all doomed! DOOMED I SAY!


I’m gonna go celebrate by feeling some emotions and giving myself a boner. Suck it, computers!
You’re going to ruin the CD drive that way.
He’s pretty funny, I was pretty surprised reading this chat he just did – [live.washingtonpost.com]
Pretty pretty.
My favorite quote from that Ken Jennings chat:
“Karma is a bitch. Unless you can’t say ‘bitch’ in the Washington Post, in which case karma is, uh, a fickle strumpet or something.”
because that’s where we’ll want to be…
Rutter’s way ahead of you. Two hundred grand to our Amish stronghold.
can someone please explain how it answered “toronto” for the final jeopardy question the day before, i would like to understand it before the robots inevitably uck out my brain
How come computer scientists never spend years designing computers that will make themselves obsolete? Why do they only try to do it for other people’s professions?
+1 Junker23, that chatlog was a great read.
@bigragu: the explanation I read was that Watson heavily discounts category names when searching for answers because they tend to be plays on words or otherwise non-specific. During regular Jeopardy it will recognize the category theme within one or two answers, but at Final Jeopardy it doesn’t have that luxury. The IBM guys claimed that Chicago ranked a very close second to the answer the computer gave.
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-
-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!
Computers may replace men…..but until they teach themselves to bitch and whine…..they will never replace chicks….
@Observerwwtdd, we might be closer than you think. Robot whores, or as I like to call them. Ho-bots.
[www.thesun.co.uk]
I’d like to see Watson vs. HAL vs. Pat from the Disney Channel movie “Smart House”
Johnny 5 >>> Watson
“Robot whores, or as I like to call them.”
They seemed to work well in “Westworld.” Until they went berserk and embarked on a killing spree, but hey, you take the good with the bad.
Seek refuge in a remote village in Africa? Think I’ll take my chances with the nuclear armageddon.
@Mel Got Served: Maybe we can play Watson and GLAD0s off against each other.
Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind seeing GLAD0s on Jeopardy!