15 Stunning Advances in Artificial Intelligence

IBM’s Watson

When IBM’s Watson computer running software defeated two “Jeopardy!” all-stars in February of 2011, it breached a gap between technology and popular culture in a big way.

Watson could hold about one million books’ worth of information in its software and storage, and when posed with a question, the AI ran several different algorithms to rank the best answer.

This was different than traditional computer searching keyword-based software, as “Jeopardy!” questions are inherently human in nature, mixing colorful wordplay with puns and cultural references.