“Toronto”? Really, Watson? That's your “Final Jeopardy” answer for Day 2 in the category “U.S. Cities”? You are a farm of super-computers with instant access to multiple terabytes of trivia, totally whomping the humans competing with you, and suddenly you cannot name a single U.S. city? And yet they’re still going to let you win?
No, let me save you buzzing in to protest: The fact that you put a lot of question marks after your answer does not make it better.
Clearly it’s time to suggest a Jeopardy! rules change...
Proposed New Jeopardy! Rule
If the audience moans really loudly at a response by some player, that audience must be polled and if the majority of its members believe the response was Completely Stupid, the other players each get a one-third share of the money that had been held until that moment by the player with the Completely Stupid answer. (This should have the effect of moving the player who made the Completely Stupid move into last place.)
Example
Let’s say, just hypothetically, that a Player A is in “Final Jeopardy” and the category is US Cities. Let’s say that Player A has $600 and Player B has $100 and Player C has $50. If A’s answer is found to be Completely Stupid, then the money A had ($600) is divided in three parts; Player A keeps one of those parts ($200) and each of Player B and Player C receives one part ($200). So after the stupid move, Player A would have $200, Player B would have $300, and Player C would have $250. In effect, this would mean that the player making the Completely Stupid move goes from first to last place.
Benefits
This would mean there was no possibility of a game that was a guaranteed “runaway.” Even the player in the otherwise-unchallenged lead could still make a foolish move at the last minute. It would mean there was always suspense until the end—not to mention justice in the case of someone, or some farm of super-computers, doing something Completely Stupid.
Personally, I think this change would be a perfectly good new rule for the game in general, not just for this exhibition game.
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RomanticPoetess
Sandra Stephens
old new lefty
marytkelly
oaxacangringa
CoyoteOldStyle
Salon.com
Comments
That being said, I was impressed by the speed of the computer in coming up with the answers and I liked the fact that the search possibilities were shown, with their percentages. I do believe I would have been more impressed if it had been using the aforementioned voice to text features widely available. Yes, Watson is a great example of computing and programming, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
If one goes to the New York Times “demonstration” of it (which appears to just be a Javascript app, not really Watson—don't get your hopes up, though it's still fun), you see they understood that a rules change to let the human answer first was needed. But perhaps it would have been most fair because of the difference in capability for humans and machine to simply go round-robin, eliminating any sense that one player had that edge over another. I'm surprised this didn't come up in the copious practice sessions they allege to have had. Maybe they practiced on people who didn't feel “entitled” to win.
Bring back the humans!
R
The far reaching implications of a Watson is what I find terrifying. Imagine a world whose power is held by such a leader who seems infallible, yet at a most crucial instant can make a fatal choice between life and demise of humanity? Yesterday, Toronto - in 2023 ???
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In short, I'm not so sure computers will ever be capable of replacing humans for some kinds of thinking. Computers are useful, and they have their place -- but so do my teeth -- in a jar by my bed.
I agree with you that there's an issue of how much to trust all those numbers, though. One really wants to see the rationales in most cases. Though there are exceptions where I think one does not, where things are happening so rapidly that one has to just make a best guess and hope because the odds against succeeding if you have delayed a guess are worse. For example, when landing on an alien planet, one can imagine decisions being made all the time about terrain, fuel use, being batted about by atmospheric effects. And yet it might be there aren't a lot of options. Making a best guess may be the only choice, and taking the time to consider the options may mean a certain crash. Actually, driving a car is a similar thing sometimes. But such situations are unusual. A great many things allow time for contemplation.
Pedant, I think that not using the form of a question is an automatic disqualification. But I'm sure the program was tuned not to make that mistake. And my vague recollection from when I watched years ago is that Jeopardy is very tolerant of stupid forms like “What is I think there are seven cities?” where literally someone tacks “What is...” onto a statement, so it would be hard to get wrong. If they required you to say “Who is Eleanor Rigby?” instead of “What is...” then it would have been a different matter.
Poetess, thanks for the support. :)