LITTLE ROCK — In the end, the humans on Jeopardy! surrendered meekly. Facing certain defeat at the hands of a room-sized IBM computer on Wednesday evening, Ken Jennings, famous for winning 74 games in a row on the TV quiz show, acknowledged the obvious. “I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords,” he wrote on his video screen, borrowing a line from a Simpsons episode. Watson also bested Brad Rutter, another ace human player. For IBM, the showdown was not merely a well-publicized stunt and a $1 million prize, but proof that the company has taken a big step toward a world in which intelligent machines will understand and respond to humans, and perhaps inevitably, replace some of them. Watson, specifically, is a “question answering machine” of a type that artificial intelligence researchers have struggled with for decades - a computer akin to the one on Star Trek that can understand questions posed in natural language and answer them. The contest, which was taped in January at the company’s T.J. Watson Research Laboratory in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., before an audience of IBM executives and company clients, played out over three evenings. The final tally was $77,147 to Jennings’ $24,000 and Rutter’s $21,600.
Veteran rocker Rod Stewart, 66, has become a father for the eighth time after his model wife, Penny Lancaster, gave birth to a baby boy, a statement said Thursday. Aiden, who was born Wednesday, is the couple’s second child, and a brother to Alastair, age 5. The rock star has six other children from previous relationships. “After the long-awaited arrival of their second child, Rod and Penny are proud and thrilled to welcome Alastair’s baby brother, Aiden, into the world. Mother and baby are healthy and blissfully happy,” said a statement. Lancaster, 39, a model and photographer, became Stewart’s third wife in 2007.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 02/18/2011