Irving Wladawsky-Berger writing at the Wall Street Journal:
- Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News
- Attendees tour the International Business Machines Corp. Watson immersion room in New York City, Oct. 7, 2014.
“Artificial intelligence is suddenly everywhere. It’s still what the experts call soft A.I., but it is proliferating like mad.” So starts an excellent Vanity Fair article, Enthusiasts and Skeptics Debate Artificial Intelligence, by author and radio host Kurt Andersen. Artificial intelligence is indeed everywhere, but these days, the term is used in so many different ways that it’s almost like saying that
computers are now everywhere. It’s true, but so general a statement
that we must probe a bit deeper to understand its implications, starting
with what is meant by soft AI, versus its counterpart, strong AI.
Soft, weak or narrow AI is inspired by, but doesn’t aim to mimic, the human brain. These are generally statistically oriented, computational intelligence methods
for addressing complex problems based on the analysis of vast amounts
of information using powerful computers and sophisticated algorithms,
whose results exhibit qualities we tend to associate with human
intelligence.
Soft AI was behind Deep Blue, IBM Corp.IBM -1.31%’s chess playing supercomputer, which in 1997 won a celebrated chess match against then reigning champion Gary Kasparov, as well as Watson, IBM’s question-answering system, which in 2011 won the Jeopardy! Challenge against the two best human Jeopardy! players.
And, as Mr. Andersen notes in his article, it’s why “We’re now
accustomed to having conversations with computers: to refill a
prescription, make a cable-TV-service appointment, cancel an airline
reservation – or, when driving, to silently obey the instructions of the
voice from the G.P.S.”
This engineering-oriented AI is indeed everywhere, and being increasingly applied to activities requiring intelligence and cognitive capabilities that not long ago were viewed as the exclusive domain of humans. AI-based tools are enhancing our own cognitive powers, helping us process vast amounts of information and make ever more complex decisions.
