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I also feel that they sort of jogged around the buzzing in question. Obviously Watson has to calculate and decide his answer, but there is no denying that he wa

I also feel that they sort of jogged around the buzzing in question. Obviously Watson has to calculate and decide his answer, but there is no denying that he was very fast on the buzzer in the game.

judofyr 16y ago
From the Q&A with Ken Jennings: http://live.washingtonpost.com/jeopardy-ken-jennings.html?hpid=talkbox1 http://live.washingtonpost.com/jeopardy-ken-jennings.html?hp... Q: Seemed to me, for many of the questions, that the computer was just better at buzzing in. Does Watson have an unfair advantage for timing the buzz-in? A: As Jeopardy devotees know, if you're trying to win on the show, the buzzer is all. On any given night, nearly all the contestants know nearly all the answers, so it's just a matter of who masters buzzer rhythm the best. Watson does have a big advantage in this regard, since it can knock out a microsecond-precise buzz every single time with little or no variation. Human reflexes can't compete with computer circuits in this regard. But I wouldn't call this unfair...precise timing just happens to be one thing computers are better at than we humans. It's not like I think Watson should try buzzing in more erratically just to give homo sapiens a chance.
- Jd 16y ago
  Homo sapiens didn't have a chance in the first place.
- trickjarrett 16y ago
  Agreed. I don't want them to offset Watson's raw potential, but why not just acknowledge the processing power put him ahead of the buzzer.
- ars 16y ago
  Seems to me they should have chosen harder questions. They should try to pick questions such that the contestants only know about 1/3 of them. Then lets see how the computer does. This is (should be) a contest of knowledge not buzzing.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    But that's true for normal Jeopardy too. The best buzzer person (Ken Jennings or Brad Rutter) wins because of their reflexes and timing. Watson just took that edge off the table and flipped it back at them.
    - ars 16y ago
      I meant change it for regular Jeopardy as well.
      - trickjarrett 16y ago
        That's good for a intellectual challenge, but for game shows to work, they need to be questions that players at home, viewers who earn them their advertising dollars, know. They want us to be sitting on the couch shouting out the answers. If we're sitting there clueless, it's a much shorter distance to changing the channel or taking it off the dvr.
patrickod 16y ago
while yes human reaction times are nowhere near as good as those achievable with computers I think the physical pressing of the buzzer was enough to level the playing field. I can't remember where I read it but it seems that at most Watson had 100ms of an advantage if he was confident of his answer before the buzzers opened. I also can't think of a consistent way of getting rid of this time gap.
- gojomo 16y ago
  Parts of the game were eliminated to give Watson a chance: audio/video clues, and categories that required extra explanation. If the exact timing of buzzing in – and not 'first' but 'first after a light goes on'– gave an overwhelming advantage to Watson, that could be eliminated, too. For example, why not just 'first to buzz in'? (That is, no penalty for being early?) Let Watson's parsing of the question text race the humans' sight-reading. It looked to me like the humans usually won the buzzer on short questions, which strongly suggests it was the slowness of reading long questions that put it on par with the humans in knowledge, and then it crushed them on buzzing-after-the-light precision.
  - alanfalcon 16y ago
    You can program a computer to wait until it has high confidence before buzzing in, but would you trust a human to wait to buzz in until he has already chosen his answer? In many situations, a contestant will buzz in knowing they're likely to be able to determine the answer in the five seconds they're given after being called upon. You'd be trading one player's perceived advantage for another.
ddlatham 16y ago
Agreed. I wonder out of the cases where both human and Watson had an answer ahead of time and were waiting for the buzzer light, what percentage did Watson win? If it's much higher than 50%, I would say that a significant portion of Watson's advantage derives not from the language processing but the response time / mechanical advantages.

I also feel that they sort of jogged around the buzzing in question. Obviously Watson has to calculate and decide his answer, but there is no denying that he was very fast on the buzzer in the game.

judofyr 16y ago

From the Q&A with Ken Jennings: http://live.washingtonpost.com/jeopardy-ken-jennings.html?hpid=talkbox1 http://live.washingtonpost.com/jeopardy-ken-jennings.html?hp... Q: Seemed to me, for many of the questions, that the computer was just better at buzzing in. Does Watson have an unfair advantage for timing the buzz-in? A: As Jeopardy devotees know, if you're trying to win on the show, the buzzer is all. On any given night, nearly all the contestants know nearly all the answers, so it's just a matter of who masters buzzer rhythm the best. Watson does have a big advantage in this regard, since it can knock out a microsecond-precise buzz every single time with little or no variation. Human reflexes can't compete with computer circuits in this regard. But I wouldn't call this unfair...precise timing just happens to be one thing computers are better at than we humans. It's not like I think Watson should try buzzing in more erratically just to give homo sapiens a chance.

Jd 16y ago
Homo sapiens didn't have a chance in the first place.
trickjarrett 16y ago
Agreed. I don't want them to offset Watson's raw potential, but why not just acknowledge the processing power put him ahead of the buzzer.
ars 16y ago
Seems to me they should have chosen harder questions. They should try to pick questions such that the contestants only know about 1/3 of them. Then lets see how the computer does. This is (should be) a contest of knowledge not buzzing.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  But that's true for normal Jeopardy too. The best buzzer person (Ken Jennings or Brad Rutter) wins because of their reflexes and timing. Watson just took that edge off the table and flipped it back at them.
  - ars 16y ago
    I meant change it for regular Jeopardy as well.
    - trickjarrett 16y ago
      That's good for a intellectual challenge, but for game shows to work, they need to be questions that players at home, viewers who earn them their advertising dollars, know. They want us to be sitting on the couch shouting out the answers. If we're sitting there clueless, it's a much shorter distance to changing the channel or taking it off the dvr.

patrickod 16y ago

while yes human reaction times are nowhere near as good as those achievable with computers I think the physical pressing of the buzzer was enough to level the playing field. I can't remember where I read it but it seems that at most Watson had 100ms of an advantage if he was confident of his answer before the buzzers opened. I also can't think of a consistent way of getting rid of this time gap.

gojomo 16y ago
Parts of the game were eliminated to give Watson a chance: audio/video clues, and categories that required extra explanation. If the exact timing of buzzing in – and not 'first' but 'first after a light goes on'– gave an overwhelming advantage to Watson, that could be eliminated, too. For example, why not just 'first to buzz in'? (That is, no penalty for being early?) Let Watson's parsing of the question text race the humans' sight-reading. It looked to me like the humans usually won the buzzer on short questions, which strongly suggests it was the slowness of reading long questions that put it on par with the humans in knowledge, and then it crushed them on buzzing-after-the-light precision.
- alanfalcon 16y ago
  You can program a computer to wait until it has high confidence before buzzing in, but would you trust a human to wait to buzz in until he has already chosen his answer? In many situations, a contestant will buzz in knowing they're likely to be able to determine the answer in the five seconds they're given after being called upon. You'd be trading one player's perceived advantage for another.

ddlatham 16y ago

Agreed. I wonder out of the cases where both human and Watson had an answer ahead of time and were waiting for the buzzer light, what percentage did Watson win? If it's much higher than 50%, I would say that a significant portion of Watson's advantage derives not from the language processing but the response time / mechanical advantages.