Men Battle Machine for Jeopardy! Prize

Who is greater, man or machine?

It is a debate that has waged on for decades, fostered by movies such as The Terminator and War Games.

We are always striving for greater AI – the drive for the optimal robot is a fierce one. But can we eventually make a robot smarter than us?

That famous old game show “Jeopardy!” is putting the question to the test.

Two of the shows most successful contestants, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, are returning to the stage for a new round – against machinated competition. The computer competitor will be powered by a program named Watson, which was developed by IBM’s (News - Alert) artificial intelligence team. As such, articles on the subject have compared the idea to that of IBM developing a chess-playing computer to compete against Garry Kasparov back in 1997.

Watson will be appearing on screen as a big round avatar. If it wins the $1 million prize, it will be donated to charities compliments of IBM.

The competition will occur over the course of a few days and the Jeopardy! episode is slated to air Feb. 14-16, according to production officials.

Articles on the subject have compared the idea to that of IBM developing a chess-playing computer to compete against Garry Kasparov back in 1997.

What are the expert’s opinions on man versus machine? Who will win? The results aren’t as certain as you would think.

TMC’s (News - Alert) IT Director, Larry Szebeni, feels like it’s quite possible that Watson might win. “Man created machine and they can create intelligence as well -- I think they will catch up with the AI eventually. We’ll get there. After all, machines have a lot of information and resources available to them and will be able to process said information better and more efficiently than the human brain.”

I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see the results… next month.