Why is “Jeopardy” a game worthy of being the follow-up to Deep Blue?
I understand why–but I wonder if a lot of people would think of “Jeopardy” being worthy of being put alongside chess as an intellectual challenge. Brown: Before Deep Blue, people though it was impossible to build a computer system that could beat a grand master at chess, which made that a very interesting Grand Challenge problem. But chess is fairly mathematical and well defined–each game state and the corresponding possible moves can be easily represented by a computer. “Jeopardy” requires understanding natural human language, which, unlike chess, is completely open-ended, is often ambiguous, and requires context to understand. Although humans can easily understand language, building computer systems that understand natural human language is extremely challenging. “Jeopardy” is a fantastic way to push the limits of this technology. I watched the “Why Jeopardy” video, and I was struck by something someone said–the idea of Don’t answer a question if you don’t think you’ve got it righ
