Watson destroys competition in Jeopardy, Day #2

=====SPOILERS BELOW=====

 

I think it's become apparent that most of Watson's advantage is in signaling speed. Figure that a top human player like Jennings knows about 80% of the answers and Watson about 90%. Watson should be winning, but not by nearly that much.

Jeopardy signaling 101 for those that don't know: An offscreen operator presses a button to enable the buzzers when Alex is done speaking. If you buzz too early, there's a 300 ms lockout until you can buzz again. A light near the board lights up when the buzzers are open. Watson monitors that light (whether by electrical connection or optical sensor, they haven't said) and physically presses the signaling buzzer. Its reaction speed must be faster than the humans' and it will never miss and buzz too early.

Also, Watson's clue selection pattern shows that it definitely starts by searching for Daily Doubles. It picks the bottom 3 clues of each category before anything in the top 2 rows, where the DDs are statistically concentrated.

Flagged for the spoiler. Some of us are on the west coast, and would like to actually watch without knowing the result ahead of time.

Thanks for the spoiler.

Thanks, idiot.

The Terminator: The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug. Sarah Connor: Skynet fights back. The Terminator: Yes. It launches its missiles against the targets in Russia. John Connor: Why attack Russia? Aren't they our friends now? The Terminator: Because Skynet knows the Russian counter-attack will eliminate its enemies over here.