Did the computer really win that TV challenge?
Time Magazine chose to put it very whimsically: "Well, Homo sapiens, it was a great run. Two hundred thousand years!
Yes, there was a war here and there and we caused a few extinctions and whatnot. But we developed language and mathematics, left crap on the ground that can be seen from space, and kicked the hell out of Homo neanderthalensis. Hold your heads high!
The magazine was reporting the seeming defeat of the humans in the US TV game Jeopardy by IBM's Watson computer. Watson won $77,147, Ken Jennings $24,000 and Brad Rutter' $21,600. But was it really that clear cut?
Commentators pointed out that over the three-night competition, Watson seemed to have an advantage in being able to "buzz in," much faster. All three seemed to know the right answer. It all came down to speed.
Veterans of the game say buzzer speed and strategy, not raw knowledge, is what really separates the top players from one another.
The win was seen as a publicity coup for IBM, which hopes to sell Watson’s technology to hospitals and call centres help s. The last man-versus-machine challenge like this was when IBM's Deep Blue, the chess-playing supercomputer, beat champ Garry Kasparov.
One internet poster, Artquest, wrote of this week's contest: "I wouldn't give Watson the win. Clearly you can see that Jennings and Rutter had the answers. They just couldn't buzz in fast enough. So the computer has faster "reflexes", not being burdened by the human nervous system and whatnot, but I wouldn't say it won."
Poster Michael agreed: " If you closely watch each competitor during the show, especially the side angles, you can see that Ken and Brad buzz in at almost every question. However, the majority of the questions go to Watson because of his faster reflexes. "