Around mid-February mankind was able to witness history, as a computer bested some of Jeopardy's most talented contestants. Ken Jennings, of 74 games won in a row fame, and Brad Rutter went up against IBM newest inventions. Its name is Watson, named after the IBM's founder, Thomas J. Watson. Watson is a "room-sized" super-computer built to acknowledge human-asked questions, after which is supposed to present an answer in the Jeopardy format.
While the super-computer was far from a perfect specimen at this point, it is very important to point out how well it did in deciphering some of Jeopardy's most labyrinthine questions. Just reading this question in the article made my head hurt, "William Wilkenson’s ‘An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia’ inspired this author’s most famous novel." This just goes to show the raw computing power of Watson. Its ability to break down such a question into its constituent parts is awe-inspiring.
While it is entertaining to watch some of the greatest Jeopardy players get beat down by a computer, it is imperative to consider what this actually means to the human/computer dynamic. There are talks that this technology would be put to use to assist doctors by answering their queries by pulling information for their encyclopedic medical memory. Additionally, it is said that it would be used to assist customers' buying concerns by answering and questions they have, as well as operate as a customer support entity. One notion that gets glossed over is the one where the writer speaks of a world in which, "intelligent machines will understand and respond to humans, and perhaps inevitably, replace some of them."
Oh, the humanity!
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