SHERLOCK ASKED: AND WHAT IS YOUR VIEW OF ALL THIS, WATSON? POST 52

Hi,

There have been a number of stories about the new technology of the future. Corning Glass is offering information on the many uses for strong varieties of glass recently invented and combined with computer like devices. These include menus in your bathroom mirror to select daily items, remind you of this or that, and give you calendar and time reminders. The new glass offers many uses in all areas of the technology of home and business. How much all of these innovations will add the cost of your home or business is a moot point as well as a mute one!

I don't know about you but that's more morning information than I can really handle without breaking the mirror!!!!!!!!!!

An article that really intrigued me was out of Yorktown Heights, New York where an IBM room sized COMPUTER (remember the first computer unveiled was also room sized and miniaturized in a surprising short time!!!!!) competed against MAN (generic) in thinking.

Now I should be more stunned by that but when you consider the thinking that most of mankind is inclined to do either through lack of ambition or intelligence, I'm compelled to think that it's about time a machine was invented to do just that!!!!!!!!!!! Problem is that such a machine is being created by the same stated mankind so unless the machine can teach itself to think for itself, I don't see much improvement happening but life might get easier!!!!!!!!

To illustrate that point, take the occasion and the million dollar prize IBM set up to test the machine. They took a JEOPARDY! contestant who won 74 consecutive games and two other big winners and pitted them against their computer, WATSON, named after the founder of IBM as is the research lab.

Fortunately, WATSON eventually WON big time since the game requires encyclopedic recall (no problem); untangling convoluted and opaque statements (a little problem but not much); strategic button-pressing (duck soup-EASY); and a bit of luck (WHOOPS!!!!!!!! WATSON WAS NOT BUILT TO BE LUCKY!!!!!!) But since only a bit of luck was required, the final amounts were: WATSON, $77,147.00; 74 GAME WINNER, $24,000.00; AND A THIRD CONTESTANT, $21,600.00. Not a bad price for a publicity stunt since WATSON couldn't spend the cash prize!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WATSON is now being groomed for, among other things, uses in doctor's practices and consumer buying. I'm not sure what one has to do with the other but doctors do sell a lot of profit making laboratory tests so I can only think that maybe WATSON will become a SUPER SALESMAN!!!!!!!!!!

WATSON'S big victory, however, was in stopping the LAUGHTER in Silicon Valley that started in the 1980's when companies who funded the 1960 vision of a thinking robot machine, were heavily invested, and went belly up!!!! The audience of IBM execs and clients, however, were quick to laugh at a huge 'faux pas' by Watson in answering Toronto for a large U.S. city and its clues. Hey, remember "mankind" programmed Watson so his intelligence is limited by his teachers!!!!!!!!!!

On the serious side of these ingenious machines, IBM announced that it will collaborate with Columbia University and the University of Maryland to create a physicians assistance service to help doctors in their illness research. They can query a "cybernetic assistant" quickly and easily on a machine that will have voice recognition. And this usage for WATSON could be ready in a few years. It will help a very memory oriented profession by providing new tools that create shortcuts to information on needed medical issues.

The three day competition put on by IBM's T.J. Watson Research Laboratory certainly proved to be a real vindication for a field of computer science that is only in its infancy. It is already parallel with STAR TREK in having a machine that can understand and answer questions but the testing indicates that the advances in the future will be more than mind boggling.

It tends to provide proof of what I wrote when all the financial troubles began and moaning and groaning was heard across America. WE ARE A VERY INVENTIVE SOCIETY and won't be kept in the DARK AGES OF POLITICAL warfare by any theorists, no matter how powerful or monied. Americans can remain in the forefront of this technological revolution and our inventive genius will go a long way to providing the freedom from oppression that our country desires.

REMEMBER SOME OF OUR GREATEST COMFORTS HAVE COME FROM AMERICAN INVENTORS. A FACT THAT IS OFTEN OVERLOOKED!!!!!!!!!!That is why other societies and radical thinkers dislike and fear America. We have the TALENT to continue to play through!!!!!!!!! Support the inventors and the inventions as Wall Street has done! Embrace PRIVATE ENTERPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THESE ARE OUR STRENGTHS AS A NATION!!!!!!!!!!!

AND REALIZE WE HAVE ONLY SCRATCHED THE SURFACE OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES. Remember how far fetched "science fiction" seemed but we will soon have tools that far surpass the fiction. MACHINES can NOW be programmed TO UNDERSTAND AND RESPOND TO HUMANS and they will replace people in many jobs BUT THEY WILL CREATE NEW JOBS in service, care taking and programming, and whatever. New kinds of services will become available that have yet to be invented or even dreamed about since no tool exists yet for the innovations. The future is ours if we UNDERSTAND that!!!!!!!!!

CHEERS, CONNIE