Why It’s Not the End of the Human Race

February 25, 2011 4:54 PM

Congratulations to Watson, the artificial intelligence program who recently wiped the Jeopardy floor with reining champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

If you missed the game show, here how the computer works:

According to IBM Corporation’s Deep QA Project:

“Watson’s software is powered by hundreds of simultaneous algorithmic calculations, which help the machine create human speech patterns, check them against its vast database of knowledge, and provide a most likely answer and a confidence level for that answer.”BUT DID YOU KNOW: Although Watson not only won Jeopardy – but, was the first to buzz in on twenty-five out of thirty answers – he did manage to answer one question wrong.

The question about art.

I’ll take “reality checks” for five hundred, Alex.

HERE’S THE DEAL: Having access to two hundred million pages of content still doesn’t mean you know how to feel.

The heartbeat of the human experience is a function of emotion – not information.

I don’t care how many terabytes of data you have access to – the only way to inform your aesthetic sensibility, and the only way to activate your humanity – is to wake yourself out of the LCD-screen induced coma, drag your carcass out of the basement, and get out into the world and talk to people – with your mouth.

That’s how you turn off your computer and turn on your heart.

Contrary to what the cynics say, Watson’s historic victory on Jeopardy is not the beginning of the end. It’s not a threat to our species. And it’s not the end of humanity as we know it.

Here’s the real Jeopardy question: What is, an alarm clock?

That’s what this moment in history is. It’s a reminder that we can’t filter our lives through pixels – and we can’t experience our reality through keyboards – not if we want those lives to matter.

Human beings are here to stay.

It’s elementary, my dear Watson.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What computer will replace you?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
For the list called, “11 Ways to Out Google Your Competitors,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

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Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Mentor
[email protected]

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