Jeopardy! Viewing Party for Students on Feb. 16

"Smartest Machine on Earth," the Feb. 9 episode of PBS's top-rated science documentary series, NOVA, can be viewed online, http://video.pbs.org/video/1786674622. This episode focused on Watson, the computer system IBM built to play humans on TV's Jeopardy! quiz show and included commentary from Tom Mitchell, head of the Machine Learning Department, and Luis von Ahn, assistant professor of computer science. Alex Waibel, professor in the Language Technologies Institute, demonstrated his Jibbigo language translation app on the program.

In addition to the full episode, NOVA also has posted shorter features on artificial intelligence, including a video about robot soccer featuring Manuela Veloso, professor of computer science, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/soccer-playing-robots.html and another about computer vision featuring Alexei Efros, associate professor of robotics and computer science http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/getting-computers-to-see.html.

The Jeopardy! matches featuring Watson and champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter will air Jan. 14-16 (at 7 p.m. on WPXI in Pittsburgh). LTI Professor Eric Nyberg, who worked closely with IBM on the Watson project, will participate in a live online chat, along with Tom Mitchell, through the NOVA web site, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/smartest-machine-on-earth.html, during the Jan. 16 episode. Nico Schlaefer and Hideki Shima, Phd students in LTI who also worked with IBM on the Watson project, will live blog through the NOVA site during the Jan. 14 episode.

Nyberg, Schlaefer and Shima discuss the project and their roles in this new Carnegie Mellon video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls2IgNiOftA

Carnegie Mellon and IBM will host a viewing party to celebrate the final Jeopardy! episode featuring Watson in the Rashid Auditorium, GHC 4401. http://calendar.cs.cmu.edu/scsEvents/demo/6665.html Doors will open at 5 p.m. The Jan. 14 and 15 episodes of Jeopardy will be rerun at 5:30 p.m. and Nyberg will speak at 6:30 p.m., followed by the Jeopardy broadcast. During this event, local IBM executives will be on hand to meet with students, talk about the technology and share in this historic moment with the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs.

Will Watson Win on Jeopardy? NOVA posed that and related questions to Von Ahn, MIT's Rodney Brooks and IBM's David Ferrucci, who headed the Watson project. See what they had to say here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/will-watson-win-jeopardy.html
Some of Nyberg's thoughts on Watson can be heard on two videos produced by IBM: http://www.youtube.com/user/ibm#p/u/11/_429UIzN1JM and http://www.youtube.com/user/ibm#p/u/13/3PqaTxLEc-Y.

Also, check out the IBM Watson Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/ibmwatson, and follow Watson on Twitter @ibmwatson and join in the conversation using the hashtag #ibmwatson.