Scene from “Desk Set” –  Spencer Tracy/ Katherine Hepburn movie from 1957.

As an almost daily viewer of the iconic game show “Jeopardy” – I have mixed feelings about the lastest announcement of  upcoming contestants. According to an Associated Press story, two of the best and  most successful past champions – Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter – will play two games against “Watson” – a computer program developed by IBM’s artificial intelligence.

The game show “Jeopardy!” will pit man versus machine this winter in a competition that will show how successful scientists are in creating a computer that can mimic human intelligence.

Two of the venerable game show’s most successful champions – Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter – will play two games against “Watson,” a computer program developed by IBM’s artificial intelligence team. The matches will be spread over three days that will air Feb. 14-16, the game show said on Tuesday.

The match-up reminds me of the old Spencer Tracy-Katherine Hepburn movie “Desk Set” where a group of researchers at the “Federal Broadcasting Network” led by Bunny  Watson (interesting name coincidence) played by  Hepburn fear that the computer EMERAC (Emmy) will replace them. The plot thickens when EMERAC mistakenly sends everyone a “pink slip.” It’s a classic movie set at Christmastime that Tracy/Hepburn fans love! You should check it out.

Read the full AP article on the Jeopardy challenge here.