/ News
IBM's Watson: Cognitive or Sentient?
The singularity is near! Our smart phones and laptops will one day seem like the gadget equivalent of the horse-and-buggy compared to the machines we will rely on in the future.
Jon Iwata, Senior VP of Marketing and Communications at IBM, stopped by Big Think’s studio to share the epic tale of the little machine that led this major shift—IBM's supercomputer Watson.
Gather around and watch this interview clip (below). One day you can tell your grandchildren that you were around when a learning computer beat humans—with their sponge-like ability to soak up useless pop-culture trivia—on the popular game show "Jeopardy!"
Iwata explains the massive significance of Watson’s "Jeopardy!" moment and what it means for the future of computing:
It’s really hard to win on "Jeopardy!" And it’s hard for a human and it’s almost impossible for a machine. Because if you play "Jeopardy!" or if you’re just kind of familiar with it, you have to understand puns and allegories, popular culture, rhymes, allusions, double entendres. These are things that computers are baffled by, even some humans. So [IBM] went after this and they struck a collaboration with the producers of "Jeopardy!", and they built this system called Watson and it played the two greatest human champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, some years ago.
I was there watching it do its thing live and it won. And the remarkable thing about Watson—that’s the name of the system—we believe it’s the first cognitive computer and what is that? It is a system that isn’t programmed. It is a system that learns. It is a system that improves itself by ingesting all the data it can and by being trained by humans. And this is a profound shift in computation because whether it’s a powerful supercomputer or it’s your iPad, all of those systems are programmed to do what they do. Your iPad can only do what a software engineer designed it to do. That is not the case with Watson. Watson improves itself through learning. And it is therefore incredibly important in this world of big data, most of it unstructured. We will need systems like Watson to make sense of all the data that’s being produced.
Given Moore's Law, humans can count on having personal Watsons someday. Parents will have to monitor them so that children don’t make their Watsons do homework. Some will undoubtedly be programmed to have Scarlett Johansson’s voice to act out Spike Jonze’s Her. The list of possibilities of course can go on. One thing is for certain today: Watson stands to revolutionize how we live and do business. MIT Technology Review reports that Watson may soon secure a seat in the boardrooms of major companies and help them make business decisions.
For more on Iwata’s compelling discussion on the implications of Watson, watch this clip from Big Think’s interview
Source: http://bigthink.com/think-tank/ibms-watson-cognitive-or-sentient
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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