Watson, the IBM computer, won it’s challenge going against two of Jeopardy’s best contestants, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. IBM, whose company slogan is “Smarter Planet,” went through a tedious process of giving Watson a personality through speech and colorful animated sequences. One of the things they worked hard on was language and pronunciation. They had to program the correct expressions and sayings of words from different parts of the world. The video shows Watson pronouncing the phrase, “arroz con pollo” the correct way.
However, the most fascinating part of this video is the interface design of Watson – the revolving colorfully animated sphere that we see, which is based on the IBM earth logo. The man behind Watson’s “face” design is Joshua Davis, a New York based artist, designer, and technologist. Joshua is known for using technology and computers as a medium to creating interactive works. He points out that designing Watson was a challenge since the computer was going to be on television. The collaborative decision came down to a colorful animated sphere that would show 27 responses based on thoughts and emotions. For example, if Watson feels confident before answering, some of the colorful little specs would move upward. However, if Watson got an answer wrong, then some of the animated dots, specs, and lines would gather downward as a response of being upset for getting it wrong.
Other factors that went into the programming of Watson included bars that measures the probability of answers it thinks is correct. There’s a confidence meter on these answers, which help Watson determine if it is worth it for him to buzz in or not.
It’s a really fascinating behind the scenes look on some of the components and people that made Watson possible.
