Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Machine Beats Man: IBM's Watson Win's Big on Day 2!

While watching Jeopardy on Monday & Tuesday I couldn't help but hear in my mind the music that we've all come to know and love from the 80's movie The Terminator. Every time Watson answered it reminded me at how close we have come to building what that movie called SKYNET. The computer system responsible for waging war against human kind. Flash forward to this decade and we had the Battlestar Galactica reboot which showed one possible future that could exist should we overstep the boundaries of technology. And yet while watching I find myself rooting for Watson to beat out it's human competition and to win. The first night it tied at $5,000 but tonight it won $35,734!!! What will it do on Wednesday? I can't wait to see - that and I can't wait to see the look on the faces of Ken Jennings (who doesn't look happy in the least) and Brad Rutter (who's biding his 15 min's of fame in hopes of being an "actor" and/or game show host in his own right. - PLEASE!) if they are outfoxed and beaten by a machine. After which time I will cringe a bit in reflecting on just how close we are to SKYNET.