IBM Watson's Ancestors: A Look at Supercomputers of the Past

Early indications suggest that Watson will be favored in its competition against Jennings and Rutter since the supercomputer already beat its opponents in a practice round in January. But Watson is not an unstoppable machine and does have its weaknesses, especially if the clue involves a high degree of wordplay or ambiguity. It's anybody's guess who will win tonight, but in honor of what may be Watson's intellectual triumph over humanity, here is a look at the rise of the supercomputer in human history. Watson is seen as a giant leap forward in artificial intelligence because to play Jeopardy it had to understand and answer English language questions using idioms and common expressions. This is unlike previous computers, which required specific input keywords before they could respond to human speech.