TROY - In the city of Troy Wednesday night, hundreds of people became immersed in Jeopardy! But it's the good kind of Jeopardy! In fact, it was amazing.
It's called "The Jeopardy! IBM Challenge" and it pitted two of the greatest players ever on the TV game show matching wits against a giant super computer named "Watson" which was built and programmed by a pair of RPI graduates.
Representing us carbon life forms were Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, both legendary champions of the Jeopardy! game show. Representing silicone and electric power was "Watson", a large and complicated computer system created by IBM.
RPI graduate, Dr. Chris Welty was one of the IBM scientists who created the next generation prototype of artificial intelligence.
Welty says, "There were a lot of butterflies. We rally didn't know how well Watson would do because (Jennings and Rutter) are so good."