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We already know that computers have an advantage over human reaction time. We don't need Watson to tell us that, my laptop can press a button faster than I can. This is like requiring each player to run a mile before being able to answer the question... and then letting one guy drive a Corvette instead.

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Of course, the impressive thing is that Watson can answer the questions at all.

The point being that at the highest levels of play, all of the contestants know most of the answers. This is a very important thing to remember. It means that even in all-human games, it's not "do you know the answer" but "can you ring in fast enough."

So it still is really quite impressive that reaction time matters at all to Watson, because it implies that it can compete at the highest levels.

And if the challenge IBM set for itself was "can we build a machine that travels faster than a person", that would be perfectly legitimate too.

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