TRENTON — Clue: This rocket scientist congressman from Central Jersey managed to take down IBM supercomputer “Watson” in a round of Jeopardy! Response: Who is Rush Holt? At an exhibition match against the computer on Capitol Hill Monday night, Holt (D-12th Dist.) earned $8,600 to Watson’s $6,200. The other contestant in that round, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) placed...
Dr. Eric Brown from IBM Research preps four members of congress - Jared Polis (D-Colo.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Rush Holt (D-N.J.) - for an exhibition game against IBM's Watson on Monday.TRENTON — Clue: This rocket scientist congressman from Central Jersey managed to take down IBM supercomputer “Watson” in a round of Jeopardy!
Response: Who is Rush Holt?
At an exhibition match against the computer on Capitol Hill Monday night, Holt (D-12th Dist.) earned $8,600 to Watson’s $6,200. The other contestant in that round, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) placed third.
Holt, a physicist who was a five-time Jeopardy! champion long before he entered Congress, wrote of his victory on Twitter last night.
“I played a full round against @IBMWatson tonight and was proud to hold my own,” he wrote.
Three other congressman who also tried to take on Watson lost, including Jim Himes (D-Conn.), who tweeted about it later.
“Ok. So I came in third behind Rush Holt (nuclear physicist) and @IBMWatson (supercomputer) but beat all the other humans. I'll take that,” he wrote.
Watson trounced Jeopardy! champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in three episodes of the show aired last month.
Holt parlayed his victory into a call to support math and science education.
“I was proud to hold my own with Watson,” Holt said. “More importantly, I was proud to join IBM and other members of Congress to highlight the importance of science and math education and research and development. While it was fun to out-do Watson for one night in trivia it is vital that, as a nation, we out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world for generations to come.”
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