well, 100 servers actually

it's not that crazy when you consider that archive.org has multiple cached copies of every web page it's ever found (which as far as I can tell seems to be almost everything)

wasn't this answer by an an early Watson prototype?

Yes, and certainly the algorithms are better now than they were then, but it still works on that same foundation. It doesn't work on natural language, so basing the likelihood of Watson understanding a sentence or not on the sentence's accessibility to someone using natural language is flawed.

Things I'd like to hear Watson say:

1. "I'm sorry, Brad, I can't let you do that." After beating him on the buzzer.
2. "I don't know, but your mother's a whore." In a Final Jeopardy.
3. "**** you, *******." To Alex after a snide comment about a "dumb" answer it comes up with.

One thing I find funny is how they keep harping on Watson not being hooked up to the internet. "He's not hooked up to the internet, we have just downloaded the internet to his harddrive"

I was wondering if the ibm programmers were furiously fixing bugs after todays episode or part of the contest is its software is fixed after the start. In any case, I could see a joke like this injected and it would be awesome.

With respect to Jenning's clue choices: I thought I heard Trebek or someone say that Watson learns contexts as it answers more questions in a particular category.

This would explain its selection of low-value clues first, and (assuming Ken knew about that context-learning), why Ken would pick high-value questions ASAP, before Watson had a chance to learn context in a category, this giving Ken the best chance for the more-heavily-weighted clues.

I would think this type of mistake would be a quick fix for programmers for Watson 2.0, as that's a very basic mistake that most human contestants wouldn't make.

Yeah, I mean it's pretty much impossible for him to understand spoken language imo. Like they said, the clues are digitally uploaded to Watson at the same time they are read to the contestants.

Right, and I understand that it's a huge programming leap (comparative to humans' reasoning) to get it to fix that particular problem. It just seems like such a glaring issue, given that the goal was to make a digital contestant.

Given the technology of voice-activated-everything, I would be surprised if it was a HUGE problem to make it to where Watson could at least register a previous answer, potentially match it up with one of the 3 "top answers," and sort of cross that one out once it registers it as an incorrect response.

Also -- does anyone find it amusing that people almost exclusively refer to Watson as a male? I mean I get the namesake and the voice, but it has to say a little something about latent sexism in everyday lingo.

or maybe it's because watson is exclusively a male name

also computers are utilitarian and male by nature

The more I think about this the dumber it gets. Are you implying if the ibm servers were named susan and had a female voice people would still refer to it as a he? It's a ****ing male name with a male voice.

broken_jia, tyvm! much appreciated.

watson repeating what ken said was fantastic. i know it's just my imagination but he seemed to hesitate as if thinking 'god this is going to sound dumb'. then alex telling him off like a naughty schoolkid was A+.

edit - i guess he has to be manually triggered to speak his answer, so that would explain the hesitation.

Who likes getting owned?

Really enjoyed this. I hope Ken brings the pain tonight.