Smartest Machine on Earth
Jeopardy! challenges even the best human minds. Can a computer win the game? Aired February 9, 2011 on PBS
- Posted 02.09.11
- NOVA
Program Description
"Watson," an IBM computing system, is gearing up for a first-of-its-kind challenge—taking on human contestants on the game show Jeopardy! With a brain the size of 2,400 home computers and a database of about 10 million documents, will Watson be able to compute its way to victory? Win or lose, the difficulty of mimicking the human thought process with software is showing artificial-intelligence researchers that there's more than one way to be "intelligent."
On February 16, 2011, two AI experts from Carnegie Mellon University, Tom Mitchell and Eric Nyberg, live-blogged and answered viewer questions here during the final of three consecutive Jeopardy! shows in which Watson challenged top human competitors Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. You can replay the discussion below.
On February 15, 2011, NOVA's Julia Cort and Michael Bicks, producers of "Smartest Machine on Earth," live-blogged and answered viewer questions here during the second of three consecutive Jeopardy! shows in which Watson challenged top human competitors Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. You can replay the discussion below.
On February 14, 2011, Nico Schlaefer and Hideki Shima, two Ph.D. students at Carnegie Mellon University's Language Technologies Institute live-blogged here during the first of three consecutive Jeopardy! shows in which Watson challenged top human competitors Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. You can replay the discussion below.
On February 9, 2011, during the premiere of "Smartest Machine on Earth," members of the IBM Watson team—Eric Brown, David Gondek, and David Ferrucci, the team's leader—live-blogged here. You can replay the discussion below.
Broadcast Credits
The Smartest Machine on Earth
- Edited By
- William A. Anderson and Daniel Gaucher
- Written By
- Julia Cort & Michael Bicks
- Produced and Directed By
- Michael Bicks
- Senior Producer
- Julia Cort
- Field Producer
- Sharon Kay
- Art Director
- Ekin Akalin
- Camera
- Joseph Friedman
Ken Fuhr
Robert Goldsborough
Rob Larussa
Stephen Mccarthy
Ben Mccoy
Sam Painter
Chuck Treppeda - Sound Recordists
- Ron Aufdembrink
Steve Bores
John Cameron
Russ Fisher
Damion Haux
Mike Lavallee
Charlie Macarone
David Mitlyng
Lupe Nejia
Roger Phenix
Steve Roseboom
Mark Roy - Music
- Christopher Rife
- Narrated By
- John Mckenzie
- Additional Editing
- Rebecca Nieto
- Animation
- Tuna Bora
- Production Assistant
- Shelby Whittet
- Film Researcher
- Julie Crawford
- Online Editor and Colorist
- David Chmura
- Additional Color Correction
- Arnie Harchik
- Audio Mix
- Greg Mccleary
- Additional Audio Mixing
- John Jenkins
- Sound Designer
- Geof Thurber
- For Radical Media
- Director of Photography
- Paul Bozymowski
- Field Producers
- Marcella Steingart
Nicole Pusateri - Camera Operators
- Bill Winters
Luke Mccoubrey - Sound Mixers
- Jason Blackburn
Andrew Barker
Brad Bergbom - Archival Material
- ETS
IBM Corporate Archives
MIT Museum and Office of Naval Research
iStockphoto
The Conus Archive
Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries - The producers gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of IBM Research and the producers of Jeopardy!
- Special Thanks
- Andrzej Rucinski, University of New Hampshire, Durham
Adam Perkins, University of New Hampshire, Durham
The Duquesne University Chess Club
Moharimet Elementary School
Raj Reddy, Carnegie Mellon University
Cat Anderson - NOVA Series Graphics
- yU + Co.
- NOVA Theme Music
- Walter Werzowa
John Luker
Musikvergnuegen, Inc. - Additional NOVA Theme Music
- Ray Loring
Rob Morsberger - Post Production Online Editor
- Jim Ferguson
- Closed Captioning
- The Caption Center
- Publicity
- Eileen Campion
Victoria Louie
Karen Laverty - Marketing
- Steve Sears
- Researcher
- Kate Becker
- NOVA Administrator
- Kristen Sommerhalter
- Production Coordinator
- Linda Callahan
- Paralegal
- Sarah Erlandson
- Talent Relations
- Scott Kardel, Esq.
Janice Flood - Legal Counsel
- Susan Rosen
- Associate Producer Post Production
- Patrick Carey
- Post Production Supervisor
- Regina O'Toole
- Post Production Editor
- Rebecca Nieto
- Post Production Manager
- Nathan Gunner
- Compliance Manager
- Linzy Emery
- Development Producers
- Pamela Rosenstein
David Condon - Supervising Producer
- Stephen Sweigart
- Business and Production Manager
- Jonathan Loewald
- Senior Producer and Project Director, Margret & Hans Rey / Curious George Producer
- Lisa Mirowitz
- Coordinating Producer
- Laurie Cahalane
- Senior Science Editor
- Evan Hadingham
- Senior Series Producer
- Melanie Wallace
- Executive Producer
- Howard Swartz
- Managing Director
- Alan Ritsko
- Senior Executive Producer
- Paula S. Apsell
A NOVA Production by Little Bay Pictures, LLC for WGBH
© 2011 WGBH Educational Foundation
All Rights Reserved
Participants
- Rodney Brooks
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/
- Eric Brown
- IBM Research
- Todd Crain
- Training Game Host
- David Ferrucci
- IBM Research
- Harry Friedman
- Executive Producer, Jeopardy!
- David Gondek
- IBM Research
- Ken Jennings
- Jeopardy! Champion
- Doug Lenat
- Founder, Cycorp
- Charles Lickel
- IBM Research
- Marvin Minsky
- MIT
- Sajit Rao
- MIT
- Sebastian Thrun
- Stanford University
- Alex Trebek
- Jeopardy! Host
- Luis Von Ahn
- Carnegie Mellon University www.cs.cmu.edu/~biglou/
- Alex Waibel
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Chris Welty
- IBM Research
- Terry Winograd
- Stanford University
- Patrick Winston
- MIT
Sources
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