AI Will be A Partnership of Man And Machine, says IBM's Rometty at #WEF2017 The reason it's called cognitive not artificial intelligence because we are augmenting intelligence.
By Nidhi Singh
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Over the past few years, big tech companies are chasing artificial intelligence.Companies like Google and Facebook have already invested millions in acquiring top startups doing a big thing with AI.
Last year, in September, IBM, Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc. announced a Partnership on AI, to design best practices for development of AI technologies.
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty in Davos yesterday shared her company's three principles for using artificial intelligence in the cognitive era.
The World Economic Forum panel discussion on artificial intelligence was hosted by McKinsey and included Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder, DeepMind; David Kenny, IBM Watson Chief; Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO and Andrew Liveris, Dow CEO.
"We have done a number of transformations in last 105 years and if you think about each one there's something that provides the foundation and basis of it. And that was actually the reason to why AI was actually called cognitive. The basis is that we would be so overwhelmed with information that it would be impossible for any of us to actually internalize is or use it to what its full value could be. But if you could, you will be able to solve problems that are not yet solvable. And that would be cognitive overload hence the word cognitive computing," explained Rometty
She further added that the data would become the basis of competitive advantage. But you could not make use of that data unless you have technologies like artificial intelligence what IBM calls cognitive. So, that became the cognitive era and what IBM company placed its big bet on.
Rometty underlined the fact that with any technology and the new era, we are in this setting that we have to think about ways of developing trust on it. One of the ways to develop trust in new technology is to have transparency and set of principles to follow.
Rometty shared three insights IBM gained from the cognitive era:
Understanding the Purpose: The first principle is to understand the purpose when you are using this technology. The reason it's called cognitive not artificial intelligence because we are augmenting intelligence.
Transparency: In businesses industry domains really matters. So as an example what we have done in healthcare is that with Watson, institutions can combine their decades of knowledge with industry data. These systems will be most effective when they are trained with domain knowledge in an industry context.
Skills: For most of the businesses and companies, it will be no man or machines. It will be all of us working together whether with doctors, lawyers, writers or call centers. It will be a partnership between a man and machine. It is a very symbiotic relationship that you are conversing with this technology. Our purpose is to augment and really be in service of what humans do.
For example, Watson's oncology advisor is being rolled out in India, China, Thailand, Finland, and the Netherlands.
