If you do want to definitely know what AI is, and perhaps more importantly what the future holds, Stanford University has just published a report titled: One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100). "Stanford University has invited leading thinkers from several institutions to begin a 100-year effort to study and anticipate how the effects of artificial intelligence will ripple through every aspect of how people work, live and play. This effort, called the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence, or AI100, is the brainchild of computer scientist and Stanford alumnus Eric Horvitz who, among other credits, is a former president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence." Click the link above to read the report,
When IBM decided to build a computer system to challenge Gary Kasparov to a chess match they knew it would be a hard challenge. Eventually, IBM's Deep Blue won. Then people thought: "Amazing! What can Deep Blue do now?" It turned out, not much really. Deep Blue could only play chess and some people argued only against Kasparov. IBM learnt from this and when they set themselves a new challenge they wanted to create something that would be useful afterwards. The IBM Jeopardy Challenge created an AI that could use vast amounts of human knowledge and answer difficult and interesting questions. Watson is now being used to help cancer specialists make better diagnoses, it's helped design a dress and it's helped create a movie trailer. In each of these cases it "augments" human intelligence rather than replace it. Watch the YouTube clip below for more.
As computers and IT become more crucial to our society and as the original generation of computer pioneers age the history of computing is becoming more popular. A recent addition to things like the Computer History Museum is the IT History Society whose mission is "to enhance and expand works concerning the history of Information Technology and to demonstrate the value of IT history to the understanding and improvement of our present and future world." Their website is recommended featuring an international database of historical and archival sites, an IT honor roll of people who have made a noteworthy contribution to the industry, records of hardware, software, and companies databases, technology quotes, a cCalendar of upcoming events, and an active blog
VentureBeat reports that some big tech companies like Amazon, IBM, Cisco have set up investment funds to support people creating bots for their platforms and environments. There are hundreds of millions of dollars up for grabs, so if you have a good idea for a bot or intelligent assistant this might be your opportunity.
