Man vs App on Jeopardy tonight.

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Alex

So I don't see how, on those questions where Watson has decided it will answer it can consistently be beat to buzzing in.

Experience is showing exactly that. If Watson buzzes in he wins a disproportionate percentage of the time. You would have to penalize Watson with a delay equal to the amount of time it takes the average human to react to a stimulus in order to even things out.

Still from another point of view, the question being asked by the Watson project is can a machine answer questions as well and as fast as the best humans. In that respect I think the answer so far is yes.