engadget reported that Watson "destroyed" its human competition while others reported that humans were "taken down."
In reality, Ken Jennings was beaten on the final answer.
I'm interested in seeing whether Watson has an "aggressiveness" algorithm that allows it to respond before the answer is fully spoken. Humans have an advantage in this regard because it goes right to the heart of intelligence. If the game boils down to reaction time, Watson will probably win.
I wonder if it's able to say to itself "I think I'm in the right ballpark, so I'll buzz now" and then take the 3-4 seconds it takes the host to recognize the buzz and ask for an answer, to finish its processing to get to the answer it's most confident of.
In other words, it doesn't need to actually have the answer to buzz. It just needs some confidence that the answer is close at hand.
I read an in depth article on Watson a few months back and I remember that it said it does in fact do that sort of confidence-based buzzing, but I'm not 100% sure.
I remember reading somewhere earlier that it did have an "aggressiveness" algorithm in the sense that it would take more risks if it was behind, i.e. answer questions with a lower threshold of "sureness".
In reality, Ken Jennings was beaten on the final answer.
I'm interested in seeing whether Watson has an "aggressiveness" algorithm that allows it to respond before the answer is fully spoken. Humans have an advantage in this regard because it goes right to the heart of intelligence. If the game boils down to reaction time, Watson will probably win.