Not Your Normal Jeopardy! Game- Nora Kornfeld, Blog Group B

     I really liked the example about Jeopardy! in the Epilogue.  Thompson was playing Jeopardy! against Watson, a high-profile computer sequel to IBM's chess playing computer. Watson was designed to do something even more impressive then its predecessor. IBM created Watson to play Jeopardy! against the champions of the game show, but in order to succeed it must understand "natural language" (280). Just like the human contestants, Watson had to learned the information, only knowing the information that was in it's electronic database. After being defeated by Watson, Thompson reflected on his experience. He says that the spookiest thing about Watson was its ability to "grapple with the clever, often obtuse wordplay for which Jeopardy! is famous. 

     What Watston's creators did is impressive. They gave a computer the ability to process information just as quickly or even better than a human. Thompson says that Watson's recall is more than Googling. Google finds a page based on your search, but then you have to read it in order to find the information you're looking for but Watson is not simply a search engine, but more of a question-answering machine. Thompson was particular interested in Watson and wrote a New York Times article about his experiences watching Watson compete on Jeopardy! 

    When reading about Watson and how different the computer was from Google was really interesting to me. Has anyone tried Googling something but just can't seem to find the answer you are looking for. Sometimes I try to find summaries for books (never for this class) and no matter what I type into my search engine I cannot seem to find what I'm looking for. Sometimes I get so frustrated because Google just isn't reading my mind! I also feel like once I find one or two okay sources I stop searching. The accessible information that Google has provided has made me lazy. Instead of being content with the decent articles I find I wish I was more interested in finding the information I was actually looking for and not the information I stumbled upon on a basic search. The idea of search engines also reminds me of an article that has come up in class before by Nicholas Carr. His article Is Google Making Us Stupid? talks about the exact problem I have with Google searches and much more about how the Internet is affecting the way we see and interpret information. 

    Before reading about Watson and Google, I never really thought about my searches. I think I can definitely be more thorough and thoughtful when searching Google and other academic databases in order to get the most out of my searches. I want to try to make my searches more like Watson and less like a simple google search. 

What do you guys think about IBM's Watson? Do you think your Internet searches have changed with new technologies?