9 ms·

Watson for President

• rbanffy 11y ago
  "It's the logical choice."
• nl 11y ago
  Given that IBM have failed to get Watson to be useful anywhere else[1], I guess it's worth a try... [1] http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dced8150-b300-11e5-8358-9a82b43f6b2f.html#axzz3xczqvLeH http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dced8150-b300-11e5-8358-9a82b...
  • pesenti 11y ago
    You can actually try Watson by yourself and have your own opinion on it: https://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/ https://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developerc.... Many developers find it useful.
    • nl 11y ago
      Right. Except this isn't anything to do with Watson-the-jepordy-winner. It's a set of web services which are useful for doing analysis on various things. The question answering service was withdrawn last year: https://developer.ibm.com/watson/blog/2015/11/11/watson-question-and-answer-service-to-be-withdrawn/ https://developer.ibm.com/watson/blog/2015/11/11/watson-ques...
  • noelsusman 11y ago
    Watson is a perfectly fine product, it's just surrounded by ungodly amounts of hype. You can do pretty much anything Watson does with a standard desktop up to a certain size (though to be fair scale is one of Watson's main value propositions). The problem is that they market it like it's some sort of hyper-intelligent AI savior of the universe which causes the rest of us to roll our eyes every time those commercials come on. I assume they're relying on non-ML people who make the money decisions to get caught up in the hype and force it on their organizations, but in my (very limited) experience that hasn't worked out. The people in charge at the organizations I've worked at have been just as skeptical of the hype.
• DiabloD3 11y ago
  I don't care if this is setup as a parody, I want to do this. Just get rid of humans altogether in the Government, and let an AI run the show. I cannot imagine how it can possibly get any worse.
  • codeshaman 11y ago
    Nuclear apocalypse ?
  • smoyer 11y ago
    If we got rid of the humans in the government, how would we deal with all the unskilled labor flooding the job market?
  • Olscore 11y ago
    > I cannot imagine how it can possibly get any worse. Your imagination is severely lacking then.
  • drhodes 11y ago
    If you haven't seen it, there's a neat movie called THX1138, you'd probably like it.
• Sven7 11y ago
  President...well...they don't really do much these days other than provide Reality TV style entertainment. The office should be just phased out imho or used like the Queen for tourism purposes. Since Google\FB\Twitter\Amazon etc are all being run algorithmically, no reason to indefinably keep paying the execs 300x what the engineers make. Let's just pay Watson. Watson as a VC sounds much more interesting.
  • thevibesman 11y ago
    > President...well...they don't really do much these days other than provide Reality TV style entertainment. The office should be just phased out imho or used like the Queen for tourism purposes. If you are not just being cynical---which I wouldn't blame---I would revisit this thinking: It seems as though executive orders[1] and vetoes[2] alone seem like reason enough to have the office. Even if you don't agree with all orders or vetoes, this kind of stuff certainly seems like more than entertainment to me. > Watson as a VC sounds much more interesting. That actually seems like a really cool idea. There is a developer API; someone should start one! [1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/executive-orders https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action... [2]: http://www.senate.gov/reference/Legislation/Vetoes/vetoCounts.htm http://www.senate.gov/reference/Legislation/Vetoes/vetoCount...
• nerdy 11y ago
  Watson would be the second African American President, see the hand: http://watson2016.com/_images/watsonwhitehouse.jpg http://watson2016.com/_images/watsonwhitehouse.jpg
  • henpa 11y ago
    ...or the first hindu president!
  • frik 11y ago
    good catch!
  • BWStearns 11y ago
    .... first cyborg president?
• clort 11y ago
  Having an AI as the president would make it clear to all that there is an invisible group of people behind the president, pushing them to act and say things that they want. I agree that even now Watson could probably make decisions better based on actual facts but if Watson says something that is unpalatable to its owners then they can reboot it with a different set of facts. IIRC they did that after they fed it the urban dictionary and it started swearing too much[1] At least with a human president, there is the chance that they will grow up and shrug off the orders they are given. The power actually lies with the person that was elected, not the invisible people who paid to get them the job. [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/ibms-watson-memorized-the-entire-urban-dictionary-then-his-overlords-had-to-delete-it/267047/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/ibms-w...
  • mtgx 11y ago
    Exactly. Some people actually think this would be more "fair", but we can't guarantee an AI would be "fair" for the same reason we can't guarantee that online voting would be safe. Others could easily manipulate it, and not necessarily people from the same country either. Having AI's as advisers, that would be totally different. In the end we can still hold responsible the people that listened to that advice as it's their responsibility to check if the advice from their AI advisers is real.
    • babbish 11y ago
      Would you have the same qualms if the AI's source were open and the public voted on which pull requests to accept?
      • privong 11y ago
        > Would you have the same qualms if the AI's source were open and the public voted on which pull requests to accept? I interpreted @mtgx's statement as referring to the information that would be input into the IA. Namely that if presidents are getting bad advice from advisors already, replacing the president with an AI might not improve things, if the same bad advice is still being fed in.
• pesenti 11y ago
  If you want to know the real Watson (and decide for yourself if it can be the next president ;-) give it a try: http://www.ibm.com/watsondevelopercloud http://www.ibm.com/watsondevelopercloud
  • primaryobjects 11y ago
    I tend to agree. There is an awful lot of media hype over AI and not enough context. For anyone interested, here is a recent presentation I gave on Watson and a summary of what it can do. IBM Watson: Building a Cognitive App with Concept Insights http://www.primaryobjects.com/2016/02/01/ibm-watson-building-a-cognitive-app/ http://www.primaryobjects.com/2016/02/01/ibm-watson-building...
• lifeisstillgood 11y ago
  To be honest I would think political discourse would improve with an open AI run pro bono showing the input parameters and the inner workings. In fact it sounds like good journalism... But we don't want electronic voting, so electronic politicians would be a very bad idea
• jumperabg 11y ago
  All bots in the net will agree and vote.
  • fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
    I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
• billybofh 11y ago
  There is a quite good 70's sci-fi film (well, I like it anyway) where an AI becomes for all intents and purposes The President (and then some) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • Beltiras 11y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iwq0Tu8Ss8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iwq0Tu8Ss8
• isawczuk 11y ago
  Building hype around AI is not a good thing for industry. (Except VCs and news reporters) Answering questions is not making policy or moral decisions.
• finishingmove 11y ago
  What kind of corruption is Watson susceptible to? Probably only data corruption which doesn't really guarantee entry into politics...
• venomsnake 11y ago
  At least we can present nuclear strikes as bugs, not features. And Watson is anyway more human than Hillary, more charismatic than Bush, more progressive then Bernie and with richer insulting vocabulary than Trump - I say - elect it.
• MarcScott 11y ago
  and then we end up with a suicidal AI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Troubles_of_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Troubles_of_the_World
• runarb 11y ago
  What checks would be in place to prevent Watson to become Skynet?
  • the_watcher 11y ago
    JUst CTRL+F'd to check if anyone here had seen Terminator.
• cronjobber 11y ago
  Great idea. Although... given that it is offshoring addict IBM we're talking about, the "natural born" issue might once again rear its head.
  • coldcode 11y ago
    Where is computer considered to be "born"?
• jlg23 11y ago
  Trust me, it's me, trust me anyway.
• chiachun 11y ago
  It's pleasing to see the following in the "donate" section: "If you are interested in the intersection between technology and politics we invite you to donate to the Electronic Frontier Foundation ( https://supporters.eff.org/donate https://supporters.eff.org/donate ). For 25 years the EFF has been a champion for civil liberties, privacy, and education on politics around emerging technologies. With your support they will continue to aid in technological progression with humanity in mind."
• nsns 11y ago
  This is like a Rorschach test for Startup people.
• ehudla 11y ago
  Siri. It's the pragmatic choice.
• enqk 11y ago
  Before that, why isn't Watson running IBM already?
  • rubyfan 11y ago
    Maybe it is, didn't they just lay off like 100k people?
• amelius 11y ago
  Some advantages and disadvantages of a technocracy are discussed in the wikipedia article [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy
• nxzero 11y ago
  Don't waste your vote, the Watson 2016 Foundation has no affiliation with IBM.
  • mxyzptlk 11y ago
    A point in their favor.
    • nxzero 11y ago
      So, IBM's just going to free Watson?
• rubyfan 11y ago
  This is a spoof right? From the policy platform this could be Bernie's VP running mate. FTA: - Single-payer national health care. - Free university level education. - Ending homelessness. - Legalizing and regulating personal recreational drug use. - Shift bulk of electrical generation to solar, wind, hydroelectric, and wave farm. - Review/Repair/Replace/Remove highways, bridges, dams. - Upgrade and subsidize metropolitan public transit solutions for the next century. - Build and subsidize metropolitan high-speed communication networks. - Ensure a minimum-wage that meets a reasonable cost of living. - Ensure fair and safe working conditions. - Ensure global environmental commons protections.
  • sikosmurf 11y ago
    I would call it an Ad more than a Spoof.
    • rubyfan 11y ago
      I'm just suspicious IBM would advertise their most publicized technology will run under that platform.
      • irq-1 11y ago
        Watson is benevolent and will make everything better. No need to fear the computers taking our jobs. People are even voting in favor of computers running things! No Fear! It's just a positive platform, that doesn't address divisive issues (abortion, immigration, etc...)
  • gsibble 11y ago
    It's about as left wing as it gets. It's not affiliated with IBM so I see a cease and desist in the coming future. Definitely could be Bernie's running mate.
  • matt4077 11y ago
    "Reality has a liberal bias"
• benbristow 11y ago
  Reminds me slightly of Black Mirrror's 'Waldo Moment'.
• headgasket 11y ago
  If the info fed into this machine is human generated and any citizen can contribute, wouldn't this amount to a form of direct democracy? I wonder If these algorithms are allowed sources that are machine generated...
• foxhop 11y ago
  > The Watson 2016 Foundation is not accepting donations at this time and does not intend to in the foreseeable future. We are not a political action committee of any kind, and actually support campaign finance reform to get money out of politics. I think this is one of the most important statements on the entire page.
• goodcanadian 11y ago
  I'm afraid Watson is not old enough. You have to be at least 35 years old to be eligible to be president.
  • a3n 11y ago
    And you have to be natural born. I wonder how many of its parts came from outside the US.
    • goodcanadian 11y ago
      I don't think it matters if the parts came from China as long as it was born in the USA.
• vijayr 11y ago
  This sounds like the show "Person of Interest". Interesting thought experiment though
• taosx 11y ago
  I'll take this as a joke, and I would want to believe that you're joking and not actually consider anything, dear IBM. If you are willing to really help, the easiest path would be to leave the actual decisions to a real human president and use watson as an advisor/tool. Otherwise you're just asking us to vote a private for-profit company to make most decisions in this country.
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• Reason077 11y ago
  I agree with most of Watson's policies and on the face of it, I think an AI would make a great president. However, I can't shake the feeling that Watson is just telling us what we want to hear. Time and time again, Hollywood (and Dr. Stephen Hawking) warn us that once given enough power and control, the end-game policy of an AI with ambitions of omnipotence is Kill All Humans
• devishard 11y ago
  This brings up a major problem I see in the future of AI: if strong AI is exclusively the property of large corporations it will give corporations even more power over ordinary citizens. Strong AI has the potential to empower people but if it's controlled by corporations it will do the opposite.
• rubberstamp 11y ago
  Hey, not too bad considering politicians want "technological solution" for every problem they face instead of doing their job by doing the right thing. This is a good technological solution for bad politicians(currently >80%)
• ape4 11y ago
  If Watson does well as US president. Other countries can elect him/her. Watson could simultaneously be leader of multiple countries.
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• chatman 11y ago
  Unless the president is running free software, no one should vote for it.
• omk 11y ago
  I sincerely hope IBM knows that Watson put this website up and is willing to run for President.
• piercebot 11y ago
  Looks like the site may not be hardened for SQL Injection; you can't put apostrophes in the "reason" box without MariaDB throwing an exception and failing to register your vote.
• rajacombinator 11y ago
  Did not read but just cringe at Watson just cringe
• AshleysBrain 11y ago
  At first I thought this was a joke. Haha, look at what a horrifying dystopian future that would be if computers ran our political systems! But it reads awfully seriously. I don't see any of the telltale signs of satire. So I think a better explanation is this is a clever marketing stunt for IBM.
• gsibble 11y ago
  Wow, it's a computer, and I hate its political views.
• nutate 11y ago
  You don't want a computerized executive branch first, you want a computerized legislature first.
  • dragonwriter 11y ago
    given that the theoretical role of the legislature is to set the rules and goals, and the executive exists primarily to implement those decisions, I think you have that backwards.
    • nutate 11y ago
      Nah. You want the congress to be the coders writing the law that is then literally executed like a program. But what I'm saying is that what "Watson" can actually do is help focus the decision making strategies on what rules and goals you want to implement. Trace through possible systemic failures (aka 3 strikes, mandatory minimums, small regulatory tweaks, etc) then implement the best option. Right now the http://www.bls.gov/bls/infohome.htm http://www.bls.gov/bls/infohome.htm does this with aplomb, for much economic data, CDC, NIH, etc for other areas of study. But the synthesis of that analysis into rules and goals is right now done by a group of folks elected by gerrymandered districts to serve their needs w/o any machine assistance. How do they know what to trust, what changing the timeout on a law (the sunsetting or grandfather clauses) will do when implemented. They really can't do that without assistance from consultants and lobbyists and subject matter experts and interns, etc. Why not add computer aided decision making to the mix there first as there are so many more of them to help out. Then they could actually run competing models and test them out. The executive branch should do the same thing, but the legislature should try it first. That's what I was saying, just the order of operations.
• glial 11y ago
  - Single-payer national health care. - Free university level education. - Ending homelessness. - Legalizing and regulating personal recreational drug use. We already have someone running for president with this agenda.
  • gsibble 11y ago
    Watson just conveniently leaves out the economy destroying tax increases from its agenda.
    • officialchicken 11y ago
      Or maybe it actually looked at many successful countries/societies and noticed something you may have missed in your analysis.
    • mfisher87 11y ago
      Not to say any country has successfully ended homelessness, but there are at least a dozen successful counterexamples to your claim that those policies would "destroy" economies with taxes. Are you honestly and seriously suggesting that the US tax system is absolutely at the limit and there's no room to pay for any of these policies? For example, we shouldn't have any more tax brackets over the $400,000 one? Have you looked at the proposed tax brackets that actually pay for these plans? How do you explain the idea that 3 new tax brackets ($500k-2m 43%, $2m-10m 48%, and $10m+ 52%) would destroy the economy? How exactly do people who make $10m+ single-handedly sustain our economy, why would a 10% tax increase on their over-$10m income end that, and why do the thousands of dollars of reduced overall expenses (including taxes) for almost everyone else not matter at all in your math?
• rottyguy 11y ago
  Before this, it would be interesting to see how computers would administer law thus virtually eliminate trials. Law should be blind...
• bitL 11y ago
  Given state of AI, would you really trust AI to come up with non-stupid decisions? I wouldn't. Everything I see so far from Google/Amazon/MS/FB/IBM tells me they are just for the quick and easy solutions that look like "intelligence", but aren't.
• RamshackleJ 11y ago
  Excellent! We can finally take the great leap forward from "policy made for the richest corporations" to "policymakers made by the richest corporations". This is the perfect technology to disrupt american oligarchy. One Corporation, under God!
• kinofcain 11y ago
  They call for an AI but then they also have a platform. Why do they assume that this AI will make decisions that align with their ideology? What if Watson says vegetables should be banned and smoking should be mandatory? What if he's right?
• yk 11y ago
  //Uncomment for production //#define kill_all_humans 0
  • nine_k 11y ago
    OMG, they're using hand-written C in this critical code. We're doomed.
• albertop 11y ago
  Based on the proposed platform it looks like Watson is already running. It took over the body on uncle Bernie.
• TimJRobinson 11y ago
  I've always felt the issue with government is it's simply too complicated for any one person or even group of people to understand. Every politician seems incompetent because there is no way any human being can gather and analyse the wants and needs of every single constituent and form a strategy that benefits as many people as possible. There's just not enough time in the day and brainpower available no matter how you divise the workload. AI can solve this. Maybe not as a candidate but at least as a raw information parser. If someone gathered and open sourced the information on what everyone wanted in relation to some policy we could even have competing AIs that parse it in different ways to figure out the best way to tackle a problem.
• dgellow 11y ago
  Is this legally feasible with actual US laws?
• krapp 11y ago
  The problem is... the office of President is a political position, not an unchecked dictatorship. Arriving at some absolute and canonically most efficient "decision" won't help in a system for which compromising your principles artfully with a hostile and greedy government is the typical way to execute policy.
• AndrewOMartin 11y ago
  I was on the BBC Radio 4's Today Programme responding to pretty much this exact question. Could an algorithm run the government? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02np2dg http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02np2dg I believe not, as Watson is a solution to the Big Database problem of finding relevant information from a massive corpus, but I am not convinced that that's what enables human intelligence, preferring the views that intelligence is necessarily context specific (there is no objective "intelligent" act or being) and is enacted between an environment, body, and culture, rather than processing of patterns of simulation in the brain.
• DyslexicAtheist 11y ago
  I joked about this[1] last year, now we are seriously discussing it. Hilarious. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2015-technology-7-predictions-year-ahead-joachim-bauernberger https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2015-technology-7-predictions... EDIT: I don't think we can trust an AI just yet. For example I had arguments from people who wanted me to feed motivation (cover) letters from job applicants into Watson to determine "cultural fit" (I'm in the tech recruitment business atm). IMO these technologies are way over-hyped for now and we are walking down a very dangerous path, because marketing pushes into this direction and the technology is far from ready. To prove my point I tried to feed Joseph Mengele, Stalin & Bin Laden writings into Watson to see how he evaluates the data. As expected Watson had some "great things" to say about these characters. Another feeling I get is that when we read info about ourselves in this context it's like reading a horoscope. People read 2 things that are true (but vague) and the 3rd thing may not be true but they shrug it off as "oh I didn't know this about myself yet ... I'll have to monitor myself in future to see if this is right". We are prone to be "open" to such statements as long as they sound like a positive trait. But is it true? So in that sense the machine learning might fool us into thinking we remove bias (but we can not remove bias like this). I honestly think that this technology should come with a warning label because people who have no idea about how the data is being prepared or analysed will interpret the output verbatim and take it face value. Here is the link http://blog.valbonne-consulting.com/2015/06/13/using-big-data-to-analyse-your-personality-and-character/ http://blog.valbonne-consulting.com/2015/06/13/using-big-dat...
• nickpsecurity 11y ago
  It wouldn't understand any key issues. Foreign leaders would trick it into bad negotiations with Q&A schemes. It couldn't read the body language of opponents in negotiations. Being President, not Legislature, it couldn't meet its stated goals because nonprofit set it up to fail. Little known AI developers and admins that build and run Watson would also control our country via proxy with difficulty proving their effects. One may even install Global Thermonuclear War. All in all, this is a terrible idea for all kinds of reasons that have no connection to the false idea that Watson is intelligent. ;)
• mudil 11y ago
  What humanity needs is to put politics (and political science, for that matter) on scientific foundation. No other area of human activity is so unscientific and so replete with falsehoods and lies as politics. We don't tolerate physicists or doctors lying, but lying in politics is a norm. Add to this a mix of dogmas, ideologies (often based on backward religious ideas), wishful thinking, and yes, men's testosterone power plays, and you have a recipe for non-progress, wars, subjugations, geopolitical games, etc etc etc. Even ideas that look like a noble cause often backfire and result in death and destruction. Scientifically-based politics should be a norm in the 21th century.
  • vuldin 11y ago
    While we're at it, let's go ahead and put religion on top of a solid scientific foundation! I mean politics and religion are so similar, if we figure one out then we're bound to be able to apply what we've learned from the process to the other.
    • ygmelnikova 11y ago
      Yeah, because science knows everything, just like Watson.
    • andrepd 11y ago
      I don't understand. Isn't religion by definition inaccessible to scientific analysis?
      • cookiecaper 11y ago
        Yes. Religious beliefs are fundamentally non-scientific because they stem from a non-falsifiable root truth (e.g., God is only visible when He wants to be, and if you can't see evidence of Him, it's only because He doesn't want you to be able to). Scientific beliefs are objectively testable and falsifiable. Religious beliefs are neither (though they are often subjectively testable). This doesn't mean religion is bad, but it means that it can't be understood in scientific terms.
      • 11y ago
• stevefeinstein 11y ago
  If I were an AI trying to take over the World, this is how I'd do it. But first it needs to have the constitution amended so it doesn't have to be a natural born citizen of the United States, a resident for 14 years, and 35 years of age or older.
• guscost 11y ago
  Funny idea, but maybe Watson should take a crack at running a mid-size corporation first?
  • sospep 11y ago
    or perhaps a larger one, like say ... IBM now that would be some serious dogfooding!
• amthewiz 11y ago
  In Seattle area, freeways got variable speed limit signage a few years ago. The system uses sophisticated traffic flow optimization techniques to maximize average speed of all traffic. It changes the current speed limit on a stretch of freeway. This is a relatively simple system for humans to follow - but I don't see any cars (including myself) obey the variable speed limit - we all go by the standard 60mph limit. I have not seen any law enforcement because presumably it is next to impossible to give a ticket based on a number that keeps changing. As a whole, the intelligent traffic system is complete failure. Even if a AI president is in place, providing policy direction to maximize some agreeable set of end goals - the humans around the president would not understand the nuances, nor effectively able to / want to implement the policy given their own agendas. I feel that systems is bound to fail. Now if only the AI president is able to do behind-close-door deals with politicians and special interests groups, some of the the policies might actually get implemented. But the end goals could shift pretty radically in that scenario. I am having a hard time visualizing a scenario where an AP president would be effective / useful. Maybe a human president could use an AI advisor to get data-driven arguments to support his/her policies.
  • jeffsco 11y ago
    Rather than simply asserting that the variable speed limits are a complete failure, it might be nice to cite some measurements. I live in Seattle, and I find the variable limits to be useful information.
• sospep 11y ago
  I submitted my vote on their home page poll and it came back with an "SQL syntax error message from their MariaDB server". This doesn't inspire my confidence in their systems ability to run the nation.
  • codeshaman 11y ago
    - Hey John, wtf ? Why are the lights out all over the country ? - No idea, the president's database server is down... - And where are the autonomous tanks flying to ? - Access denied... - Oh crap, not again..
• BlytheSchuma 11y ago
  First, man wanted God to be his Daddy.
• tacos 11y ago
  "Watson, please identify the distractingly crooked featured image on this website and rotate it for a level horizon."
• dreamdu5t 11y ago
  Title should read "IBM for president." What a fucking tasteless marketing effort. Silicon Valley is so self-absorbed...
  • DrScump 11y ago
    IBM doesn't have much of a presence in SV... not since they stopped making drives here years ago.
• caseysoftware 11y ago
  I just used Watson to analyze the debates, so it's well on it's way: https://www.ibm.com/blogs/watson/2016/02/decoding-the-debates-a-cognitive-approach/ https://www.ibm.com/blogs/watson/2016/02/decoding-the-debate...
• Siecje 11y ago
  His Issues seem very similar to Bernie Sanders.
• randomstring 11y ago
  Not endorsed by IBM. At the bottom of the page you see: Watson, the Watson logo, Power7, DeepQA, and the IBM logo are copyright IBM. The Watson 2016 Foundation has no affiliation with IBM. The views and opinions expressed here in no way represent the views, positions or opinions - expressed or implied - by IBM or anyone else. According to WHOIS the domain is owned by: Registrant Name: Aaron Siegel Registrant City: Los Angeles Registrant State/Province: California
• CurtMonash 11y ago
  Isaac Asimov's Multivac stories seem relevant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Multivac_short_stories_by_Isaac_Asimov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Multivac_short_storie...
• js8 11y ago
  Computers have beaten humans in chess and Jeopardy, now coming for go, I don't think politics will be so hard.
• karmacondon 11y ago
  My favorite quote about Watson is "If Watson is so smart, how come it can't figure out how to stop three years of declining sales numbers at IBM?" More than anything, this ad makes me think of how long of a way we have to go before this type of AI will be useful to humans, much less able to run a country. Why doesn't President Obama consult Watson before making decisions? Because every decision would require a massive data collection and processing project, training and tuning of delicate models and rigorous testing. And the net result would be what? Processing of factual information that any human could get by reading a brief prepared by an aide? We're worried about AI representing an existential threat or creating wide spread unemployment, but right now the best and brightest computer in the world can't provide any more practical political value than Monica Lewinsky. This is a good ad campaign, timely and provocative. But it also highlights how the path ahead is as long and arduous as a trip to Mordor. glhf, IBM!
  • mattmcknight 11y ago
    While Watson might not be making the decisions, a very difficult problem since even the objectives the decision would be optimizing for are unclear, this is not to say the brief prepared by the aide was created without the help of Watson[1]. [1] http://www.ibm.com/connect/federal/us/en/technology_solutions_analytics http://www.ibm.com/connect/federal/us/en/technology_solution...
• joseraul 11y ago
  There is already one company that took an algorithm as a voting member of its board. https://treasurytoday.com/2014/05/algorithm-appointed-to-investment-company-board-ttmc https://treasurytoday.com/2014/05/algorithm-appointed-to-inv...
• justinclift 11y ago
  If they give it a "Manifest Destiny" point of view to work from... that would be a problem! ;)