Why Human-Computer Teams Hold the Most Promise for the Future

▤ Summary

After IBM’s Watson computer beat out a couple of human challengers on the game show “Jeopardy!,” Zachary Lemnios, vice president of strategy for IBM Research, stated that the victory “opened up a new chapter in information technology called cognitive computing — based on the idea of a natural interaction between systems and people.” The evolving relationship between humans and machines was also the key theme of Gartner’s “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2013.” Gartner reports it chose to “feature the relationship between humans and machines due to the increased hype around smart machines, cognitive computing, and the Internet of Things.” For more information on the latter topic, read my post entitled “The Rise of the Internet of Things.” The important point to be made here is that even though machines are getting better at learning, it is still the human/computer team that holds the most promise for the future. In fact, by observing how emerging technologies are being used by early adopters, there are actually three main trends at work,’ said Jackie Fenn, vice president and Gartner fellow. Not only can it automate tasks that now require painstaking programming — for example, moving a robot’s arm smoothly and efficiently — but it can also sidestep and even tolerate errors, potentially making the term ‘computer crash’ obsolete.” He continues: “The new computing approach, already in use by some large technology companies, is based on the biological nervous system, specifically on how neurons react to stimuli and connect with other neurons to interpret information. In coming years, the approach will make possible a new generation of artificial intelligence systems that will perform some functions that humans do with ease: see, speak, listen, navigate, manipulate and control. That can hold enormous consequences for tasks like facial and speech recognition, navigation and planning, which are still in elementary stages and rely heavily on human programming.

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