Perhaps even a supercomputer needs a little time to get loosened during a big performance. After an admirable but not perfect round of Jeopardy on Monday in which it finished tied for the lead, IBM's Watson computer crushed human champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter on Tuesday's episode and takes a huge lead into the final episode tonight. Last night's play began with Watson and Rutter at $5,000 apiece, with Jennings trailing at $2,000. After Watson's dominance, last night's show ended with the machine having tallied $35,734 to $10,400 for Rutter and $4,800 for Jennings.
Watson elegantly saw off the puny humans with responses on the likes of Franz Liszt, dengue fever, violin, Rachmaninoff and albinism. Even host Alex Trebek seemed spent: with Watson wanting to wage the extremely specific amount of $6,435 on a Daily Double, the laconic Trebek simply replied, "I won't ask" (naturally, Watson was spot on ...
