IBM to pit supercomputer against Jeopardy! champs

It's bad enough that I can barely compete with the geniuses that parade through the Jeopardy! set every evening: Now us mortals have to face the possibility of competing against a computer loaded with trivia, as IBM preps a special supercomputer that could take on human contestants on a special edition of the popular game show.

This is the latest step from IBM in pushing computer intelligence into the world of human intelligence. The latest battleground: Quiz show Jeopardy!, where sometimes easy, sometimes obscure, sometimes tricky trivia is asked of three contestants who have to be the first to ring in in order to get a shot to answer -- and always in the form of a question.

Beating humans to the buzzer and phrasing the question properly will be the least of the worries of Watson -- as the Jeopardy!-playing supercomputer has been named -- nor will it be having a memory for facts. Rather, Watson's big challenge will be in understanding the questions posed on the show in order to determine exactly what is being asked.

For a simple piece of trivia this might not be so tricky: In a category of "World Capitals" a question of "Canada" leaves little confusion for Watson (or human contestants) on how to respond. But a question like "Meaning 'not working properly,' it may date back to a character in the comic strip 'The Katzenjammer Kids.'"* requires a deep level of abstract thought. Watson may have a list of Katzenjammer Kids character names, but will it be able -- on the fly -- to examine that list and compare it to common slang terms to determine the right response? Will it even understand to do that?

And how will it respond to the wordplay clues in categories like "Before & After" or categories which ask for a response that rhymes?

Watson's engineers say they aren't sure either, but they want to try, the goal is to get computers interacting in "human terms," a challenge which began in earnest when IBM pitted a computer against chess champion Garry Kasparov in the mid-'90s. Human and computer both won various matches in those series (though Kasparov claimed cheating when he lost). Ironically, the Jeopardy! challenge presents a much tougher challenge from an engineering standpoint -- but one in which it would be far more effective to cheat. (Any number of quick wits could do well feeding Watson answers; the number of players who could challenge Kasparov at chess is much smaller.)

Now IBM and Jeopardy!'s producers are looking at ways to actually stage this event, who would play, and what exactly would be on screen during the game. I, for one, vote for a CGI avatar with a deep, Scottish accent.

*Answer: "on the fritz" -- this was an actual Final Jeopardy! question in 2007