IBM's Watson wows NCSU students

RALEIGH -- Watson, the "Jeopardy!" winning computer built by IBM, demonstrated his smarts Wednesday in a trivia throw-down with some N.C. State University students.

No offense to the students, but Watson rocked.

"I couldn't even push the buzzer fast enough, regardless of whether or not I knew the answer," said Eric Whitmire, a sophomore from Wilmington who was brave enough to face Watson. "He was that quick."

Watson knew that a 1970s TV show starring Lee Majors was "The Six Million Dollar Man." He also nailed answers on philosophy and food.

The demonstration was part of an event Wednesday when IBM executives spoke to students at the Poole College of Management at NCSU. IBM is marking its Centennial this year.

Ginni Rometty, the company's senior vice president of sales, marketing and strategy, told students they would live through the third major era for computers. The first wave saw computers that tabulated. The second brought computers that were programmable. The third is what Rometty called cognitive computing.

That's where the amazing story of Watson, the artificial intelligence system, comes in.

Jim DePiante, project manager for IBM's Jeopardy Challenge, described the development of Watson as "a pretty cool party trick" to showcase a technological marvel. But Watson will have an impact ultimately on the landscape of human experience - it's headed for use in medical fields to help doctors diagnose and treat disease.

When IBM began the project, computers could do question-and-answer tricks, but one answer would take about two hours, and the computer would get it wrong two-thirds of the time. Scientists had to get the response time down to three seconds and reverse the accuracy rate.

It was, DePiante said, "bold, audacious and a little bit crazy."

150,000 books

Wednesday's demonstration at NCSU was a simulation. Watson, in reality, weighs 18,000 pounds and contains information equivalent to 150,000 books. It consists of a cluster of 90 servers the size of 10 refrigerators.

Watson basically searches through haystacks of information to find needles, or answers, and then rates those answers with a confidence level, DePiante said.

The IBM team recreated the "Jeopardy!" set at its lab in New York. Former contestants were brought in for sparring matches with Watson.

There were flashes of brilliance and colossal bloopers, DePiante said.

One clue about a young female pop singer should have elicited the response, "What is Britney Spears?" Watson's answer: "What is holy crap?"

The correct response to a clue about a French bacteriologist should have been Louis Pasteur. Watson responded, "How tasty is my little Frenchman?" Instead of "Malcolm X," Watson said "Malcolm 10."

And then came time for the scientists to demonstrate Watson to the "Jeopardy!" producers.

"It was here, in front of the 'Jeopardy!' executives, that Watson dropped the F bomb," DePiante said. The category was "Just Say No." The clue was, "A German four-letter word for 'no.' "

Despite the gaffes, Watson got better and better at "understanding" the quirky, ambiguous human language in the game show clues.

In February, Watson beat "Jeopardy!"'s all-time winning players on national television.

On Wednesday, Whitmire, the NCSU student, said he was inspired by the story of Watson.

"The most impressive thing is how it learns from itself," he said. "That's when you know you have something great."

Whitmire, who studies computer science and biomedical engineering, wants to turn the Watson concept around. He's interested in helping patients control wheelchairs with their brains or communicate with thoughts on computer screens.

"I want to work on making the brain more like machines," he said.