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The Tide Turns as ‘Jeopardy!’s’ Computer-vs.-Humans Showdown Goes Into Second Day

Feb 16, 2011  •  Post A Comment

Tuesday’s second round of supercomputer vs. humans on "Jeopardy!" was a much different story than the close battle that marked the first day of the three-day competition.

This time the humans were no match for IBM’s Watson supercomputer, reports New Scientist’s One Per Cent blog.

The human contestants, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, managed to answer just five questions between them during the second night of the showdown between them and Watson, the story notes.

The computer played almost flawlessly, the story says, building up a $30,000 advantage for the computer over the humans after two days of competition. But Watson made one error, on the final question of the night, answering "Toronto" to a question about the name of a city that features two airports with names related to World War II. Both Jennings and Rutter gave the correct answer, Chicago.

According to B&C, the first round of the match on Monday scored the highest single-day rating for "Jeopardy!" in four years. The show earned an 8.7 household rating in metered markets, up 24% from last February’s 7.0 household rating, the story notes.

One Comment

  1. I love this idea, Watson, a computer, battling it out with 2 nerds. On the nerdiest show on TV. Nerds of the world are having a party. With lots of Koolaid and cake.

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