IBM's Watson on Jeopardy, The Final Saga IBM's Watson on Jeopardy, The Final Saga

In yesterday's article I focused mainly on Watson.  So, in case you missed the episode last night, BIG SPOILER ALERT, Watson won.  Ken was actually pretty close after Double Jeopardy; in fact he was leading after the Jeopardy round.  If Ken would have bet bigger in Final Jeopardy it wouldn't have been a gigantic blow out...

Now, in today's article I wanted to focus specifically on how incredible Google's search technology is.  Below are the 5 categories from the Jeopardy round and a sample of questions from each category.  Beneath the question is the answer and whether Watson was wrong.  Beneath the answer is the result of a Google search and how easily and where the answer could be found.


EU, The European Union

Question: Each year the EU selects capitals of culture; one of the 2010 cities was this Turkish "meeting place of cultures"

Answer: Istanbul

Google: 2nd result, right in the title

Question: Elected every 5 years it has 736 members from 7 parties

Answer: Parliament

Google: 1st result, right in the title

Question: As of 2010 Croatia & Macedonia are candidates but this is the only former Yugoslav Republic in the EU

Answer: Slovenia (wrong)

Google: 4th result, had to search the content, but it was there

Actors Who Direct

Question: "A bronx tale"

Answer: Robert de Nero

Google: 1st result, the description

Question: "The Great Debaters"

Answer: Denzel Washington

Google: 1st result, the description

Dialing for Dialects

Question: While Maltese borrows many words from Italian, it developed a dialect of this semitic language

Answer: Arabic

Google: 1st result, right in the title

Question: Aeolic, spoken in ancient times, was a dialect of this

Answer: Ancient greek

Google: 1st result, right in the title

Breaking News

Question: Gambler Charles Wells is believed to have inspired the song "The man who" did this "at Monte Carlo"

Answer: Broke the bank

Google: 1st result, in the description

Question: Nearly 10 million youtubers saw Dave Carroll's clip called this "Friendly Skies" airline "breaks guitars"

Answer: United Airlines

Google: 1st result, in the description

One Buck Or Less

Question: 99 cents got me a 4-pack of Ytterlig coasters from this Swedish chain

Answer: Ikea

Google: No results!

Question: A 15-ounce VO5 moisture milks conditioner from this manufacturer averages a buck online

Answer: Alberto (wrong)

Google: 3rd result, in the description

Also On Your Computer Keys

Question: It's an abbreviation for Grand Prix Auto Racing

Answer: F1 (wrong)

Google: 2nd result, in the title

Question: An additional section placed within the folds of a newspaper

Answer: Insert

Google: 1st result, in the title

Final Jeopardy - 19th Century Novelists

Question: William Wilkinson's "An account of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia" inspired this author's most famous novel

Answer: Bram Stoker

Google: 3rd result, in the description.  Must be noted, that the first two results where regarding tonight's episode of Jeopardy!

As you can see, Google in itself is pretty good!

Published on Feb 17, 2011

Tags: jeopardy | watson | Theory

Related Posts

Did you enjoy this article? If you did here are some more articles that I thought you will enjoy as they are very similar to the article that you just finished reading.

Tutorials

Learn how to code in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, C#, SQL, and more.

No matter the programming language you're looking to learn, I've hopefully compiled an incredible set of tutorials for you to learn; whether you are beginner or an expert, there is something for everyone to learn. Each topic I go in-depth and provide many examples throughout. I can't wait for you to dig in and improve your skillset with any of the tutorials below.