What led you to believe that I don't understand what's going on? I definitely understand and appreciate IBM's accomplishment. I'm not minimizing the coolness of Watson being able to come up with so many correct responses, I'm minimizing the importance of its actual Jeopardy! gameplay. I'm not sure you understand the real game mechanics of Jeopardy! With highly proficient contestants, it comes down to being able to buzz in as soon as the light turns on indicating that the clue has been delivered by the host. All three contestants know the correct responses to most clues, and it really does come down to the buzzer reflexes, something Watson clearly has a huge advantage in.
Again, I fully understand and appreciate what an advance in natural language processing and sheer computation Watson represents. Even being able to match a below-average human Jeopardy! contestant would be impressive. However, the true game-winning technique in Jeopardy! (when all three contestants are highly skilled) is buzzer reflexes.
I think you are exactly right. Other commenters seem to be misunderstanding you.
It's clear that this is a huge achievement. However, it is different than a computer beating the human chess champion. All this will prove is that a computer is about the same as the best humans, not strictly better than them.
(And, that it is strictly better at timing its buzzer response, which is completely not impressive for a machine to excel at.)
Again, I fully understand and appreciate what an advance in natural language processing and sheer computation Watson represents. Even being able to match a below-average human Jeopardy! contestant would be impressive. However, the true game-winning technique in Jeopardy! (when all three contestants are highly skilled) is buzzer reflexes.