There’s a stir happening in the world of game shows and computer technology – there’s a computer competing on Jeopardy. Not just competing – CRUSHING everything that stands before it.
And for some reason this is news. This isn’t news. It’s the dawn of a terrifying new world where computers can beat us at anything we set out to do, including singing in pitch. We have computers hooked up to nuclear weapons, hooked up to our art to make it sound better, and now they’re answering questions on our gameshows? A line needs to be drawn. Scientists have engineered a computer to sit on the Jeopardy panel politely, and somehow programmed it not to make fun of Alex Trebek. In any way, shape or form. So it’s basically a miracle of science.
They named it Watson. And it came to destroy, which it did, consistently. I know there’s something inherently difficult in programming a computer to understand questions that are worded backwords, but it’s essentially the equivalent of watching a televised broadcast of Spanish settlers slaughtering Native Americans.
These will be our new overlords. You will come to know Watson’s name as he drives you into the quarries.
How’d the computer do? All things tallied, after the final round he’d made $35,734. Game over, man.
Game over.
