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Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

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Re: Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

#21

Post by c17r »

fsk wrote: post #9
ramidarigaz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it definitely wasn't as impressive as it seemed on the surface. A much better test of Watson's performance would have been QuizBowl, where contestants can buzz in while the question is still being read.

They also restricted the clues compared to what they would normally have - no audio/video Daily Doubles. I think there might have been some other restrictions, but I don't recall the exact rules. I think they didn't allow any of the "special" categories they sometimes have. They also did some other tricks, like giving Watson a parsed ASCII stream of the clue, rather than making it see the screen and parse it out. I t…

Some detailed info about the timing and the buzzers: http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-buzzer-factor-did-watson-have-...

Re: Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

#22

Post by knodi123 »

curun1r wrote: post #15
fsk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made it that way on purpose, so it's more entertaining for the audience. If you could buzz in early, the players would almost always buzz in before Alex Trebek finished reading the question, which makes it less interesting for the audience. With the wait-to-buzz-in rule, the audience gets an chance to understand and maybe think of the answer before the contestants speak.

You could allow contestants to buzz in as soon as possible, but have the system wait until Alex has finished reading the answer (remember, it's Jeopardy! so the contestant gives the question ;-P) before it indicates which player buzzed in first. Yes, there might be an audible clicking sound in the background while he's talking, but it would make the game more about speed of recall rather than hand-eye coordination.

"as soon as possible"? Because I guarantee if you did that, you'd have people buzzing in as soon as Alex opened his mouth.

Being first to buzz is a huge part of the game, and no matter when you turn the buzzers on, there will be people trying to buzz at that moment.

Re: Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

#23

Post by johnsberd »

scott_s wrote: post #11
jMyles wrote: post #4

It never occurred to me that optimized buzzer timing was such a big part of Watson's dominance. Kinda takes some of the romance out of it.

I think there's more to it than that. I actually played Watson on the Jeopardy set they filmed the Watson episodes on. That "set" was just the auditorium here at IBM Research in NY, and they left the set intact for about six months after taping. Colleagues of mine hosted an academic conference in our building during that time. Since Watson was on everyone's mind at that point (and we were literally looking at the set…

That was a fascinating read thank you.

Can you expand on why it was so shocking or maybe impressive by the Obama response. I'm confused what the significance of it is.

Re: Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

#24

Post by fennecfoxen »

kmkemp wrote: post #18
curun1r wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could allow contestants to buzz in as soon as possible, but have the system wait until Alex has finished reading the answer (remember, it's Jeopardy! so the contestant gives the question ;-P) before it indicates which player buzzed in first. Yes, there might be an audible clicking sound in the background while he's talking, but it would make the game more about speed of recall rather than hand-eye coordination.

I think that would just encourage contestants to buzz in immediately, since I imagine that the risk of penalty of not knowing a question pales in comparison to the reward of getting to answer for a strong contestant. You effectively eliminate the only downside of buzzing early since contestants would get to hear the entire question regardless.

The traditional College Bowl / Quizbowl technique is (a) to assign a 50% penalty to the early buzz with an incorrect answer, and (b) since it's game with teams and has two teams, the rest of your team is disqualified from answering the question, leaving the opposite team with lots of time to think about it (and subsequently secure access to the 3x bonus question following every toss-up question.)

Which is lots of fun and very competitive, but a little bit less tele-savvy.

Re: Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

#25

Post by emehrkay »

fsk wrote: post #12
gamegoblin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I never liked about jeopardy is that you can't buzz in at any time. I played on a trivia team at the high school level, and most questions were structured like: "This American architect, born in 1867, is known for works such as the Robie House, the Guggenheim Museum, and Fallingwater." So they typically feed you information from least to most well known, and you can buzz in at any time. This rewards players…

They made it that way on purpose, so it's more entertaining for the audience. If you could buzz in early, the players would almost always buzz in before Alex Trebek finished reading the question, which makes it less interesting for the audience. With the wait-to-buzz-in rule, the audience gets an chance to understand and maybe think of the answer before the contestants speak.

You know how annoying it is when someone tries to finish your sentence and they are completely wrong? I imagine Jeopardy without the rule to be unwatchable.

Re: Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

#26

Post by tanderson92 »

johnsberd wrote: post #23
scott_s wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's more to it than that. I actually played Watson on the Jeopardy set they filmed the Watson episodes on. That "set" was just the auditorium here at IBM Research in NY, and they left the set intact for about six months after taping. Colleagues of mine hosted an academic conference in our building during that time. Since Watson was on everyone's mind at that point (and we were literally looking at the set…

That was a fascinating read thank you. Can you expand on why it was so shocking or maybe impressive by the Obama response. I'm confused what the significance of it is.

Probably a reference to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqXX6kuk_XQ

Re: Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

#27

Post by scott_s »

johnsberd wrote: post #23
scott_s wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's more to it than that. I actually played Watson on the Jeopardy set they filmed the Watson episodes on. That "set" was just the auditorium here at IBM Research in NY, and they left the set intact for about six months after taping. Colleagues of mine hosted an academic conference in our building during that time. Since Watson was on everyone's mind at that point (and we were literally looking at the set…

That was a fascinating read thank you. Can you expand on why it was so shocking or maybe impressive by the Obama response. I'm confused what the significance of it is.

It's not that different from other questions. It had to know that Barack meant Barack Obama because of the connection with the presidential category; it had to know that llamas are pack animals; and it had to know that "Obama" rhymes with "llama", and that a category with rhyme in the name probably needs a rhyming answer. I think that's extraordinarily impressive, but standard compared to what it does for other answers.

We were just shocked because it answered before we could even think the question through, and it happened in front of us. It's an irrational thing, but being physically present for the act makes it more impressive.

Re: Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

#28

Post by axitanull »

jplarson wrote: post #17
martin1975 wrote: post #5

Ken Jennings' 74 win streak is because...? A. He cheated B. He's lucky C. He's a genius D. It's written

Seems harsh that so many people downvoted this, I dig the Slumdog Millionaire reference!

I believe that is because many people don't want comment section in Hacker News turn into the one in Reddit, which consist of mostly jokes, pop culture references...things that doesn't really contribute to the discussion.

Re: Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

#29

Post by jMyles »

axitanull wrote: post #28
jplarson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems harsh that so many people downvoted this, I dig the Slumdog Millionaire reference!

I believe that is because many people don't want comment section in Hacker News turn into the one in Reddit, which consist of mostly jokes, pop culture references...things that doesn't really contribute to the discussion.

> things that doesn't really contribute to the discussion.

There may be a diversity in palette for this matter, even among the same people at different times.

Re: Why Ken Jennings’s ‘Jeopardy’ Streak Is Nearly Impossible to Break

#30

Post by hyperpape »

gamegoblin wrote: post #7
jMyles wrote: post #4

It never occurred to me that optimized buzzer timing was such a big part of Watson's dominance. Kinda takes some of the romance out of it.

Something I never liked about jeopardy is that you can't buzz in at any time. I played on a trivia team at the high school level, and most questions were structured like: "This American architect, born in 1867, is known for works such as the Robie House, the Guggenheim Museum, and Fallingwater." So they typically feed you information from least to most well known, and you can buzz in at any time. This rewards players…

Couldn't you make it that you can buzz in anytime, but there's no advantage for buzzing first during the question reading (if two people buzz, randomly pick one)?
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