Watson and Jeopardy

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 10:40:27AM -0500, Colin McGregor wrote:
> Well, I watched it as well. Good show, but of course where the
> computer got things wrong was arguably more interesting than where it
> was right, which last night included the final question. For those who
> don't watch Jeopardy, contestants have to come up with questions that
> would solicit the answers given by the show host, Alex Trebek...
> 
> Last night's final answer was:
> 
> U.S. CITIES: ITS LARGEST AIRPORT NAMED FOR A WORLD WAR II HERO; ITS
> SECOND LARGEST FOR A WORLD WAR II BATTLE
> 
> The two human players came up with "What is Chicago?", the computer
> came up with "What is Toronto????". Now, the final answer didn't
> matter in this case, as the computer had built up enough of a lead in
> the first part of the program that a wrong question at the end didn't
> stop the machine from winning. Still, lets see, Toronto is:
> 
> - Not a U.S. city
> - Largest airport named after former Prime Minister Person, who during
> World War II was a diplomat (not a World War II hero).
> - Officially the Island airport is named after Billy Bishop, a World
> War I (not World War II) fighter pilot and combat hero.
> 
> In other words fails on all points. One could sort of understand a
> response like say New York City where two of the three points are
> satisfied:
> 
> - A U.S. city
> - Largest airport  named after President Kennedy who during World War
> II commanded PT-109 and saw combat (so, not what he is best known for,
> but a World War II hero)
> - Second largest airport LaGuardia is named after a former Mayor

In watson's defence, it did put a lot of question marks to indicate it
was not at all happy with its answer.

Now the fact Toronto is a rather unique city name in the world, and
doesn't fit the category, one would have thought it could have found a
better guess.

Still the fact it knew it was almost certainly wrong is important.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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