Questions to all the answers

You probably saw this one too. Some time in February we will be seeing an IBM computer named “Watson” face off against two grandmaster champions in a for-theages episode of Jeopardy. The computer already won the test trial.

What’s the big deal? Didn’t the fabled Big Blue computer win a chess champsionship some years ago, only a short while after losing at Tic Tac Toe? Isn’t chess on a (polite cough) higher intellectual plane than Jeopardy? Why shouldn’t we hold the excitement until a computer can do something really impressive, like inventing a twoingredient recipe that is always tasty or a way to get teenage boys out of bed before noon? Because, we are told, it shows how the computer has enlarged its reasoning base: by being able to form questions based on answers and being alert for puns and wordplay, it is more closely emulating the human mind. In other words, the computer is developing a personality.

Jeopardy seems to me to be a place that could use an injection of personality. With the geatest of deference to (Canadian export) host and “TV personality” Alex Trebek, it must take a toll to spend 27 years wearing the persona of the average guy who happens to know all the answers (or rather, questions). When he says “sorry Josephine and panel, the answer is not Krishnamurtu but Krishnamurti,” you wince for him and think a computer would do just as well.

And if a computer can out-think its co-panelists, why should it not develop a snappier personality than those we see in those wooden introductory exchanges between host and contestants:

“So, Howard, it says in my notes that you are an actuary from Connecticut with two children and a funny story about your pencil eraser collection.”

“Yes, that’s right, Alex” “So tell us the funny story, Howard.”

“Sure, Alex. Boy, I can’t believe I’m on TV with Alex Trebek.”

“Like, right away Howard.”

“Well, Alex, one day I dropped the whole collection on the floor and my wife said, ‘I hope nothing’s broken’.”

“And I bet your children found it funny too, Howard. “Moving on, we have Dorothy, a librarian from Wisconsin. Say, Dorothy, I bet the job’s good for your circulation.”

“You said it, Alex.”

“And turning to our third panelist, SDCRF985, I’m told you’re into jazz.”

(After removing shades), “That’s right, Alex, I just released my Dave Brubeck tribute album, ‘Take 4.736225’, and I’m working on a Chet Baker/Dixieland fusion album with Wynton Marsalis. But hey, its good to spare a little processing capacity with you.”

“Can I get your autograph?”

And before we leave Jeopardy alone, one thing I can tell you for sure. Computers already compose music. And that’s a good thing. Because someday I might hear an alternative to Merv Griffin’s turgid little dirge played during the ‘Final Jeopardy’ segment of the show.

Why don’t we have computers doing more jobs that appear to require personality? We already have computer- generated characters who read the evening news. Why not have computers take over standup comedy, for example? You’d just have to program in a few news headlines, a little diminished celebrity, some body parts, a few relationships with bad raps, some insults, and you’re away to the races. Just envision two computers hamming it up:

XBI: (star of XBI Late Nite Live): “You know, UDG, it sure was hot out there today….”

UDG: (straight man): “How hot was it, XBI?”

XBI: “It was so hot, I thought for a nanosecond I was hotter than Britney Spears after she discovered that her estranged husband had arranged for her to be captured by aliens.”

Just this small change would result in thousands of comedians gaining the opportunity to lead productive lives.

But if computers have personalities, and can communicate with each other, do they descend to the level of gossip and derision that we do? Maybe they already say something like this:

XBI (in a C-Rated, computers-only show): “Do you know how stupid humans can be, UDG?”

UDG: “No, XBI, how stupid can they be?”

XBI: “Someone read a human a list of 1,000 items to remember and he could only remember 202 of them!”

Or this:

From Computer A to Computer B: “If you promise me it won’t get beyond your firewall, did you hear about the health claims database of human number 101010001: too bad his wife didn’t know that!”

Yes, I see a big future for computers that think and behave like humans. It’s about time we surrendered control of the planet to some species with greater capacity for wisdom. And bad jokes.

David Simmonds’s writing is also available at www.grubstreet.ca.