Man Ties With Machine in Jeopardy Showdown

The first round of Jeopardy's three-game man versus supercomputer showdown finished Monday night with humanity having fended off the rise of the machine. Human player Brad Rutter, the game show's record money-winner, was tied with IBM supercomputer Watson at $5,000 at the close of play, AP reports. The other human contestant, Ken Jennings, who has the longest winning streak at 74 games, was far behind with $2,000.

At one point, Watson had $4,000 while his human rivals had just $200 each and a rout appeared likely, but Rutter's comeback was aided by a few slip-ups on the computer's part. After Jennings had incorrectly answered "1920s" to a question, Watson gave the same incorrect answer. "Watson is very bright, very fast, but he has some weird little moments," host Alex Trebek said. (More Alex Trebek stories.)