This was significant for IBM in its Centennial year. When Deep Blue defeated Gay Kasparov in the Chess match, it was more about processing speed and mathematical calculations. Watson is much smarter than Deep Blue, because it can understand natural languages along with its trivia and puns involved. Watson also had its share of weird moments, when it answered "Toronto" for one of the questions related to US Cities and also gave the same wrong answer which Ken Jenning gave.
The victory of Watson is much more than it winning a game show. It opens new frontier for research in IBM and IBM has already committed to use Watson in medical research.
"Think about how Watson could be used in medicine, as a diagnostic aid. A patient may describe to a doctor a certain symptom or a high level of pain, which, on the surface, may seem to be an important clue to the cause of the ailment. But Watson may know from looking at a lot of data that that symptom or pain isn't the key piece of evidence, and could alert the doctor to be aware of other factors."
It opens new frontier of possibilities in the may other fields. IBM general counsel Robert Weber describes how Watson might be used in the legal profession in a guest blog posting on The National Law Journal Web site.
In case you are interested and missed the telecast, you can catch the video on Youtube here.
In case you are interested and missed the telecast, you can catch the video on Youtube here.
