Final Jeopardy

The charming and terrifying story of IBMs breakthrough in artificial intelligence from the Business Week technology writer and author of The Numerati (Publishers Weekly starred review). For centuries people have dreamed of creating a machine that thinks like a human. Scientists have made progress: computers can now beat chess grandmasters and help prevent terrorist attacks. Yet we still await a machine that exhibits the rich complexity of human thoughtone that doesnt just crunch numbers or take us to a relevant web page but understands and communicates with us. With the creation of Watson IBMs Jeopardy!-playing computer we are one step closer to that goal. In Final Jeopardy Stephen Baker traces the arc of Watsons life from its birth in the IBM labs to its big night on the podium. We meet Hollywood moguls and Jeopardy! masters genius computer programmers and ambitious scientists including Watsons eccentric creator David Ferrucci. We see how Watsons breakthroughs and the future of artificial intelligence could transform medicine law marketing and even science itself as machines process huge amounts of data at lightning speed answer our questions and possibly come up with new hypotheses. As fast and fun as the game itself Final Jeopardy shows how smart machines will fit into our worldand how theyll disrupt it. The place to go if youre really interested in this version of the quest for creating Artificial Intelligence. The Seattle Times Like Tracy Kidders Soul of a New Machine Bakers book finds us at the dawn of a singularity. Its an excellent case study and does good double duty as a Philip K. Dick scenario too. Kirkus Reviews Like a cross between Born Yesterday and 2001: A Space Odyssey Bakers narrative is both... an entertaining romp through the field of artificial intelligenceand a sobering glimpse of things to come. Publishers Weekly starred review