The quiz show “Jeopardy” will broadcast an encore presentation of the competition between IBM’s “Watson” computing system and the show’s two top contestants, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, officials with IBM and the show announced.
The rebroadcast of the contest, which first ran in February, will air September 12, 13 and 14. Millions of North American viewers will be able to again witness TV history as Watson successfully competes against two human champions in two matches played over three consecutive days.
“With the ‘Jeopardy’ challenge, we accomplished what was thought to be impossible-building a computer system that operates in the near limitless, ambiguous and highly contextual realm of human language and knowledge,” David Ferrucci, IBM Fellow and scientist leading the IBM Research team that created Watson, said in a statement. “Watching the match again reminds us of the great power and potential behind Watson to be able to make sense of the massive amounts of data around us and to solve problems in new ways.”
Six months after the original competition, Watson’s Deep Question Answering (QA) technology has already driven progress in new fields such as the health care industry, IBM officials said. IBM is working with Nuance Communications to explore and develop applications to help critical decision makers, such as physicians and nurses, process large volumes of health information to deliver quicker and more accurate patient diagnoses. And IBM is working with universities and clients to identify other potential uses for Watson’s underlying QA technology.
The technology underlying Watson analyzes the structure and wording of the question or challenge being investigated, and formulates an answer that it has the highest level of “confidence” is correct, IBM officials said. Watson answers “natural language” questions, which can contain puns, slang, jargon and acronyms that must all be evaluated as part of Watson’s confidence in returning an answer, IBM said.
“We recognized the ‘Jeopardy’ IBM Challenge was not only a historic moment for television, but also for scientific discovery and innovation,” Harry Friedman, executive producer of “Jeopardy,” said in a statement. “We wanted to provide the opportunity for more viewers to once again enjoy this ground-breaking exhibition match.”