The Wall Street Journal | Why you should bet big on bionic brains
November 23, 2012
Source: The Wall Street Journal — November 23, 2012 | Matt Ridley
When an IBM computer program called Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997, wise folk opined that since chess was just a game of logic, this was neither significant nor surprising. Mastering the subtleties of human language, including similes, puns and humor, would remain far beyond the reach of a computer.
Last year another IBM program, Watson, triumphed at just these challenges by winning Jeopardy! (Sample achievement: Watson worked out that a long, tiresome speech delivered by a frothy pie topping was a “meringue harangue.”) So is it time to take seriously the prospect of artificial intelligence emulating human abilities?
The brain may not be incomprehensibly intricate. In fact, it may be a bit like Manhattan. Yes, argues the inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil in his new book How to Create a Mind. Mr. Kurzweil reckons that a full understanding and simulation of the human brain is a lot closer than most people think. Since he has a more impressive track record of predicting technological progress than most, he deserves to be heard.[...]
Comments (2)
by Cybernettr
Due to its profound implications, Watson’s win on Jeopardy should have been top news in every media outlet in the country. But where did I first hear of it? An offhand reference to it in Business Week in and interview of (guess who?) Ray Kurzweil.
It’s like the internet. Most people heard nothing about it until 1994, the year it landed in our laps. Fortunately we needn’t depend on the media anymore to inform us of these emerging technologies.
by Bob Vasquez
The “full article” delves into pattern recognition which may not always be reliable, if the wrong pattern is recognized. For example, in music (with which Ray is familiar) the pattern recognized are the two bar lines that enclose a measure with the first note being the downbeat. Musicians, too often, accent the downbeat when, in fact, the upbeat is where musical note grouping begins (anacrusis, q.v.). The human brain, for a very long time, has recognized the pattern of barlines instead of the patterns of note grouping.