Categories: InnovationScience

IBM CTO Says Artificial Intelligence Won’t Overtake Humans “For Centuries”

In views contrasting those demonstrated by scientist Stephen Hawking last week that artificial intelligence will surpass the intelligence of humans within 100 years, a major voice in IBM’s Watson project expressed to TechWeekEurope that it will more than likely take much longer than that.

Speaking to journalists at IBM InterConnect in February, Rob High, an IBM CTO and Fellow, claimed that a belief in artificial intelligence succession betrays our own intelligence as human beings.

High said: “I find that whole notion is borne from a gross underestimation of how incredibly sophisticated we are as humans. If you really get to what makes up our condition, we are not only able to employ reasoning strategies that are incredibly sophisticated , but we have so many different strategies that we employ subconsciously that we’re not even aware of that, it’s going to take us centuries to go recreate all those different strategies.”

Speaking at last week’s Zeitgest 2015 conference in London, and reported by TechWorld, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking said: “Computers will overtake humans with AI at some within the next 100 years. When that happens, we need to make sure the computers have goals aligned with ours.”

“I really discount any of these people”

But High said that artificial intelligence computers are only an extension of our cognitive thoughts, with artificial intelligence existing to help human reasoning, not replace it.

“What’s important is that we as humans can create strategies on the fly, and that’s something we’ve never quite figured out even with artificial intelligence,” said High. “I really discount any of these people who are trying to claim that computers are going to replace humans because they simply don’t understand their own richness of capability.”

Rob High, who has been an IBM Fellow since 1998, is a lead player in the development of IBM’s Watson supercomputer. High said that the purpose of Watson, and the very crux of how it works, is an extension of the human brain, rather than a replacement.

“We have very deliberately concentrated on applying cognitive systems to amplify human cognitive capability,” said High. “If you go back through the entire human history of technological advancements, [computers] have always been applied this way. They are they to amplify our own human strengths.

“In all these cases, cognitive systems are employing reasoning strategies that are similar to those we as humans would employ. And so the results of those strategies are things that become reasonably intuitive for anyone who looks at them. A doctor would look that the choices and say ‘not only does that make sense’, but the outcomes are intuitive and I can apply them to the decisions I want to make.”

Health

One of IBM Watson’s focus areas is the health industry, where the supercomputer is set to revolutionise the way doctors diagnose patients. High said that Watson won’t be replacing doctors, but helping the diagnosis with artificial intelligence. Watson will present to the doctor a list of treatments that the doctor may not have known about previously because of a number of different factors.

“It’s there to provide a list of choices that expand [the doctor’s] skills and inspiration. This will make them a better doctor.”

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Ben Sullivan

Ben covers web and technology giants such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft and their impact on the cloud computing industry, whilst also writing about data centre players and their increasing importance in Europe. He also covers future technologies such as drones, aerospace, science, and the effect of technology on the environment.

View Comments

  • Centuries?? Hmm..

    It's difficult to agree with High if one considers the number and trajectory of paradigm shifting technological developments in the last 50 years. Even Hawking's 100-year estimate is likely to be conservative.

  • Kurzweil suggests that the progress of the entire 20th century would have been achieved in only 20 years at the rate of advancement in the year 2000—in other words, by 2000, the rate of progress was five times faster than the average rate of progress during the 20th century. He believes another 20th century's worth of progress happened between 2000 and 2014 and that another 20th century's worth of progress will happen by 2021, in only seven years. A couple decades later, he believes a 20th century's worth of progress will happen multiple times in the same year, and even later, in less than one month. All in all, because of the Law of Accelerating Returns, Kurzweil believes that the 21st century will achieve 1,000 times the progress of the 20th century. (Kurzweil, "The Singularity is Near," page 39)

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