Holt Wins One for the Humans

Some of U.S. Rep. Rush Holt’s more enthusiastic constituents like to ride around in cars with bumper stickers that read “My Congressman IS a Rocket Scientist!” The slogan is a nod to the 12th district Representative’s background as a physicist and all around smart guy.

Smart is one thing, but who could have known Holt was the guy to best represent humanity in an intellectual struggle with a supercomputer?

Alright, so maybe it’s not all that serious, and maybe the intellectual struggle was really just a Jeopardy! match with Watson, a trivia-answering computer built by IBM, but now Rush’s supporters should consider a new slogan for their man: “My Congressman IS Smarter than a Computer.”

Holt and an assorted group of Representatives from across the country faced Watson in an exhibition match in Washington D.C. Monday night. Holt, a five-time Jeopardy winner himself, played the first round against the computer and earned $8,600 to Watson’s $6,200.

Though it was a fun event, it was not without real purpose. The match was a chance to highlight science and technology education and its importance in helping elevate the United States when it comes to competing globally.

“I was proud to hold my own with Watson,” Holt said. “While it was fun to out-do Watson for one night in trivia, it is vital that, as a nation, we out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world for generations to come.”

Holt represents Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury Township, Eatontown, Tinton Falls, Little Silver, Oceanport, Rumson, Fair Haven, Freehold, Holmdel, Middletown, and Manalapan, among other towns.

Holt was able to build his lead in categories “Presidential Rhyme Time,” and “Also a Laundry Detergent.” In a separate phobias category, he also correctly identified what Hippophobia is the fear of; that’s a fear of horses, duh.

In what surely would have made for an endearing moment in a television movie about a trivia-playing computer longing to be human, Watson successfully beat Holt to the punch on the Jeopardy clue “Ambrose Bierce described this as a ‘temporary insanity curable by marriage.’”

Watson’s answer, a correct one by the way, was “What is love?”