Monday, February 22, 2016

IBM Watson: Advances in Artificial Intelligence

As the world progresses toward the future, technology advancements are increasing exponentially in various fields, such as business, medical, and educational. One of the greatest inventions achieved in technological history is the concept of Artificial intelligence (AI). One of the most famous names known for its breakthrough in AI is IBM Watson. IBM Watson is known for its cognitive technology that depicts a mind similar to a human rather than a computer. IBM Watson uses information technology (IT) in order to provide feedback and distribute a variety of knowledge on any subject.
            The first element that I feel should be emphasized from this article is IBM Watson’s programming ability to learn and teach itself an array of subjects and techniques at an extremely fast rate. For example, in the article, Watson taught itself how to cook through Watson’s learning of the principles of taste and cuisine style. It was then able to create new dishes. In the business world, Watson could use this adaptive and its incredible aptitude to learn a business, and possibly come up with new ways to improve a business. The next component to the concept of IBM Watson, mentioned in a separate article, is Watson’s potential ability, through crunching data, to aid specialists in seeking out patterns of past natural disasters, such as earthquakes. Obtaining this knowledge could possibly allow experts to warn civilians of a possible natural disaster, saving millions of lives. This could determine the locations of upcoming businesses, showing the areas prone to earthquakes. Lastly, I feel that Watson’s ability to answer subjective questions asked by a diverse population is extremely valuable. In any business, there will always be issues that arise during operations that aren’t routine. The use of IT, I believe is the strongest here because of the responsive feedback mechanism that Watson has. For businesses, sometimes service is hard to come by when the busy week days come around. Having a possible operator, being IBM Watson, to answer phone calls while the human employees take care of the jobs more suitable for a person, will increase efficiency and productivity.
            Although this article made it a priority to share Watson’s new advances, there are a couple of points that I feel this article could have mentioned to add to the conversation. First off, I feel that this article mentioned Watson’s ability to take jobs out of the hands of human employees, it failed to mention the jobs that it could provide for humans. The repairs and maintenance that the Watson technology will need could open a whole new field of technological maintenance. Another point that was never touched upon was the expenses that Watson will cause for a business. Watson is very complex and requires some of the world’s most expensive technology, forcing businesses to invest a lot of money into it. Overall, this article was very informative and Watson will continue to shock the technological world.  





1 comment:

  1. I found this article to be extremely interesting to read. Society really seems to have taken a huge step in the futuristic direction. When talking about an innovation like IBM Watson, I can't help but to think about technology way down the road. It is fascinating to see that this futuristic technology is already making an impact in this day and age. Firstly, I would like to comment on its ability to do household chores such as cooking. A robot being able to do everyday chores could prove to be a huge help to people who don't necessarily have the time to them. For example if a parent needs to go pick up their child from school, the IBM Watson could get dinner ready for when they return. I also see how it could be incredibly helpful in the business world. A lot of unexpected events could take place in the office. Having a robot to be able to answer the phone and respond to questions could end up being a huge help. What I found to be the most fascinating was the robot's ability to predict natural disasters. Time and time again, there are stories on the news about how hundreds of people die in a devastating disaster. The IBM Watson's predictions could ultimately put an end to all of that. I also agree that there are areas that were not touched on. It could be a big problem if this robot ends up taking away jobs from human workers. Also the principal cost and the maintenance of this machine could be incredibly expensive. Overall this technology seems incredibly promising, but there are still a few areas that need to be touched upon.

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