Watson analyzes Jefferson's personality

IBM's Watson supercomputer has been applied to a new horizon after wiping out human chess players and Jeopardy champs: psychology. Insert a passage of writing into the newly-debuted Personality Insights demo and the All-Wise will analyze your personality.

I stuck in the text of Query 2, "Rivers," from Notes. Here is Watson's interpretation of Jefferson's personality:

You are heartfelt, tranquil and skeptical.

You are adventurous: you are eager to experience new things. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. And you are imaginative: you have a wild imagination.

Experiences that give a sense of well-being hold some appeal to you.

You consider independence to guide a large part of what you do: you like to set your own goals to decide how to best achieve them. You are relatively unconcerned with helping others: you think people can handle their own business without interference.

*Compared to most people who participated in our surveys.

The data breakdown is even more interesting, and, I have to say, resonates with my understanding of Jefferson:

There are a lot of data here that seem wildly inconsistent and contradictory: for example, "Emotionality" at 2%, while "Sympathy" is 100%; "Adventurousness" at 100% and "Excitement seeking" at 0%. It may be surprising to find the need for "Liberty" at 3%. You can find your own. At any rate, it's worth studying. 

Hey, if the darn machine can beat Ken Jennings...