Jeopardy!, IBM's computer vs. two humans

[Matt D.]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/ibms-watson-supercomputer-destroys-all-humans-in-jeopardy-pract/

Quite amazing.

[Spikesoftail]

It should run for president

[polishmafia]

I've been following this for a while now. The only thing I haven't found info on is how Watson gets the "answer" (the clue) that is shown on the screen.

A normal human needs time to hear/read the information and make a decision on the answer. Is the computer given the clue audibly through the host? If so, the voice recognition is absolutely incredible. I should know, I work in the voice industry. If its through text, by the time the question is read by the host, the computer has a TON of time to figure out an answer. I mean, hell, Google search is just about as fast as me.

[Matt D.]

The way I understood it is it's all entirely voice recognition. You can see it weighing certain answers as well, so I'm wondering if it listens for certain key words to derive possible answers and then picks the most likely one.

[polishmafia]

Did a little digging and found out that Watson is using IBM's own voice recognition software called WebSphere Voice Response. Their text-to-speech is really incredible as well.