IBM: Watson

IBM, the technology and business services company, had developed a computer capable of understanding human language, but the technology was hard to explain to the average human.

IBM: Watson

Principal author: Magnus Blair, Ogilvy & Mather New YorkContributing authors: Ashley Wood and Kenan Ali, Ogilvy New York

Background:

In February 2011, on a 3 night special edition of the US TV quiz show Jeopardy!, an IBM computer named Watson took on the two finest human players ever to play the game1.

It won2.

Yet the real victory wasn't of a computer over humans. It was a computer over language. Because while many TV quizzes just test general knowledge, Jeopardy!challenges contestants with wordplay. As an...

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