IBM Watson Hits Jeopardy to Destroy All Humans
It's not self aware... yet.
IBM designed a computer that could beat a chess player. While a computer-run chess program isn't new, it was an achievement for a program to best the best chess player in the world.
Now more than a decade later, IBM has set out to own the game show of trivia known as Jeopardy. IBM and the game show have teamed up to deliver a special charity edition of the show where the top two human Jeopardy players faced off against IBM's Watson supercomputer and program.
The final show off is hitting the networks tonight, but the results are in and the machine beat out the humans. It was a convincing victory, but Watson still showed clearly that it was a machine more than an advanced human neural network.
On the first night, Watson tied for the lead with a human at $5000. The second night, Watson took a commanding lead with a score of $35,734 to $10,400 for Brad Rutter and $4,800 for Ken Jennings. The lead was stunning, but Watson also faltered when it gave the question of Toronto when the answer asked for a U.S. city. Oops.
Turn on the telly if you want to see puny humans getting served by machine, or check back later for the final tally.
Find out more about Watson on IBM's YouTube channel.
UPDATE: It's over. Watson finished with $77,147, compared to $24,000 for Jennings and $21,600 for Brad Rutter. Read more about the final day here.

As soon as this thing becomes self aware we're all screwed!
Tell Ray Kurzweil that.
While they may be more 'intelligent' than the human brain, there is other (logics) that we are more capable of processing: such as emotions, right-wrong, inter/intrapersonal processing.
It doesn't need a technician to fix the BSODs because it doesn't run Windows.
What about a kernel panic?
man i suer hope global warming isn't a myth! i will be living in the tropics very soon if it isn't!
i think i shall turn on every electrical appliance i have and burn some cardboard and tires and used motor oil!
Global warming does not mean that every day will be warmer than the last day, it means that the planet as a whole gets warmer over every 30 year period
But of course some years will be colder and some will be warmer but the average of the whole planet will be warmer
2010 did have some cold snaps here and there but the planet as whole was the warmest ever recorded
But if you want every day to be warmer than the last day to be sure of global warming then by the time that happens it will all be lost
as for the "oh machines can't replace hmans" welll yes and no... i have the idea of the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy... if self aware the simplest machines would probably be the happiest much like humans, but we couldn't possibly even imagine what if anythign thier motivations woudl be.. so no use speculating till either a terminator or a very nice courtious robot butler shows up or somethign in between... who knows