Ken Jennings, the man known for his record-breaking streak of 74 consecutive wins and $2.52 million in earnings on the popular TV quiz show Jeopardy! back in 2004, may have some competition on his hands.

This Sunday’s New York Times Magazine contains an incredibly fascinating expose about “Watson,” an advanced “question answering” machine that IBM researchers have been busy developing for the past half-decade.  The story provides a step-by-step account of the challenges and research advances underlying Watson’s development — including a detailed description of how Watson works today.  It chronicles early wins — and, notably, losses — for the supercomputer versus real-life former Jeopardy! contests.  And it describes ways in which natural language processing and data mining advances enabled by Watson’s development could be extended to other fields, like healthcare, e-government, and transportation.

This Sunday’s story is a must-read — and it’s just the first in a series titled “Smarter Than You Think” the NY Times is publishing this summer, describing recent advances in AI and robotics, and the potential impact of this work on society.

And don’t forget to try your luck against Watson in a simulated New York Times Web interactive.

(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, Director, CCC)