The NY Times has an interesting article today on the next boundary in Artificial Intelligence: computer programs playing Jeopardy!. According to the article, IBM plans to announce today that it is in the final stages of completing a computer program to compete against human “Jeopardy!” contestants. The problem is much harder than you would think for a computer: the facts are the easy part. The hard part is understanding the questions. Consider:
- The system must be able to deal with analogies, puns, double entendres and relationships like size and location, all at lightning speed.
- The system must be able to capture the exact meaning of a spoken sentence. For example, the sentence “I never said she stole my money” can have seven different meanings depending on which word is stressed (just like “I only have eyes for you” has a different meaning if you place the “only” in any possible different location).
- The system must be able to deal with strategies such as selection of categories and the amount of questions, which often involves reading the two other players.
If they can work this out, watch for the computer to appear on the game one day in the future (although, alas, not with Art Fleming). Under the rules of the match that the company has negotiated with the “Jeopardy!” producers, the computer will not have to emulate all human qualities. It will receive questions as electronic text. The human contestants will both see the text of each question and hear it spoken by the show’s host, Alex Trebek. The computer will respond with a synthesized voice to answer questions and to choose follow-up categories. To approximate the dimensions of the challenge faced by the human contestants, the computer will not be connected to the Internet, but will make its answers based on text that it has processed and indexed before the show. The researchers and producers are also considering what form the cybercontestant will take and what gender it would assume. One possibility would be to use an animated avatar that would appear on a computer display. It will not, however, look like a robot.
