IBM’s Watson Computer Wallops ‘Jeopardy!’ Champs in Trial Run
Our robot overlord isn’t named HAL or SkyNET — it’s Watson.

After four years of development, IBM on Thursday publicly unveiled a computing system that specializes in analyzing natural human language and answering complex questions. In other words, it’s really good at Jeopardy!.

To test its acumen, the machine was pitted in an exhibition match against the most celebrated human contestants, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, to stunning effect. Watson quickly cleared out the entire first category without the humans getting even a buzz in.

Named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, the project is a defining breakthrough in artificial intelligence technology, said John E. Kelly III, senior vice president and director of IBM Research.

“We’ve created a system that can interact in a very special way,” he said at the demonstration. “People spend their lifetime trying to advance [the field of artificial intelligence] by inches. What Watson does has demonstrated the ability to advance the field of artificial intelligence by miles.”

Today’s practice run was just a glimpse of what’s to come, in other words. IBM announced the contest in December. The official first-ever man vs. machine Jeopardy competition will take place Friday, and will air on February 14, 15, and 16.