As a child I grew up watching Jeopardy with Alex Trebek. My mother is a huge fan and I have great memories of her reserving that half hour every evening so we could sit in front of our small black and white set to race and see who could blurt out the questions the fastest. For that half hour the set was not an idiot box, but rather a test of your intellect, breadth of knowledge and reflexes. To this day, in a reprise similar to that of Rain Man’s, my mother must watch Jeopardy at 7:30 in the evening. It is the only game show I will watch now if I happen to be channel surfing and I come across it.
Now Big Blue is developing a computer program to play Jeopardy against human contestants. If I.B.M. succeeds and the computer wins, it will be a big step forward in the field of Artificial Intelligence. With all the cutbacks because of the economy I wonder if Alex will be worried about eventually being laid off and replaced by a computer. After all, if it can play and win, it should be a piece of cake to host the show.
2 comments:
I didn't even realize Jeopardy has been on that long. As far as I can remember she has always watched it but you make it seem like it was even before my time
I'm not sure, but I think there was a period there where it went on hiatus for a while and then came back, but yes, Jeopardy has been on for a long, long time.
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