January 28, 2011 – Maybe the questions should be, can a computer enhanced with semantic technology and natural language processing win at Jeopardy when positioned against the human brain? Especially considering that the questions rely heavily on wordplay, puns, and well, semantics.

We found this interesting topic on eWeek in their article, ‘IBM’s Watson Odds-On Favorite for Jeopardy Win.” An upcoming episode of the popular quiz show “Jeopardy” is pitting an IBM computer called Watson against two past contestants. The show will be screened over three days from Feb. 14-16.

Watson was named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson and was built by a team of IBM scientists. They set out to build a computing system that rivals human ability to answer questions posed in natural language with speed, accuracy and confidence. The computer system represents the integration and advancement of many search, natural language processing and semantic technologies. Following the Jeopardy challenge, the team plans to apply the technologies to areas such as medicine, government and law to drive advances in computer-supported intelligence and decision-making.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.