Turns out artificial intelligence is pretty darn smart.
The IBM supercomputer known as Watson positively creamed past Jeopardy! champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a three-day battle that can't even be called a grudge match, it was so one-sided.
Watson (next stop replacing Jude Law in the Sherlock Holmes franchise, perhaps?) wins $1 million for its efforts, which will be split between World Vision, a relief and development charity, and World Community Grid, whose mission is to, as it sounds, create the world's larget public computing grid.
Despite a barely there showing yesterday, Jennings bumped himself into second place today, for which he'll collect $300,000--half of which, he says, is going to VillageReach to benefit remote villages in eastern Africa. Half of Rutter's $200,000 is going to Lancaster, Pa.'s Community Foundation.
"I for one welcome our new computer overlords," Jennings wrote along with his correct Final Jeopardy question.