Name: Watson, Jeopardy and me, the obsolete know-it-all
Uploaded: 2013-04-05T15:22:43Z
Duration: 17 min 37 s
Description: Trivia whiz Ken Jennings has made a career as a keeper of facts; he holds the longest winning streak in history on the US quiz show Jeopardy. But in 2011, he played a challenge match against IBM's supercomputer Watson -- and lost. With humor and humility, Jennings tells us how it felt to have a computer literally beat him at his own game, and makes the case for good old-fashioned human knowledge.

Ken Jennings: Watson, Jeopardy and me, the obsolete know-it-all

Watson, Jeopardy and me, the obsolete know-it-all

Trivia whiz Ken Jennings has made a career as a keeper of facts; he holds the longest winning streak in history on the US quiz show Jeopardy. But in 2011, he played a challenge match against IBM's supercomputer Watson -- and lost. With humor and humility, Jennings tells us how it felt to have a computer literally beat him at his own game, and makes the case for good old-fashioned human knowledge.

Losing to a supercomputer on a televised quiz show forced a hard look at the value of human memory in a digital world. As technology surpasses people in sheer recall, the ability to quickly draw on knowledge can still change lives, as when a ten-year-old saved over 100 lives during a tsunami by remembering a single geography fact. In a time when information is doubling every 18 months, what we know shapes crucial choices and connects us to one another. Preserving a shared cultural memory keeps society resilient as technology evolves.