"Smartest Computer on Earth"

Impact of Business

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Through the three day challenge on Jeopardy, Watson proved that it was a beginning to a new era of artificial intelligence. Ken Jennings wrote on his answer pad during Final Jeopardy “ I for one Welcome our new computer overlords” (“Final Jeopardy and the Future of Watson”).

The actual scores at the end of the third day showed the world that Watson wasn’t all talk. Watson had $77,147 dollars, Ken $24,000, and Brad $21,600. Watson beat the Jeopardy Champions by $53,147 dollars. IBM won the million dollar prize and Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter (Jeopardy’s biggest winner) won $200,000 and $300,000 consecutively (“Final Jeopardy and the Future of Watson”).

Watson, even though the Jeopardy Challenge is over, is not the last time the world will be hearing from him. Watson was created in the “Age of Data” and with Watson people now have the tools to analysis the data quickly. Watson is like a human who is able to read all written text, memorize and understand it and also answer any questions about the material (“Watson after Jeopardy”).  Which will make life simpler, because life is all about the questions and finding the answers.  Watson will make a smarter world.

Computers understand facts, knowledge, and science however they struggle with natural language. Watson overcame that challenge and now has numerous possibilities. As David Gondek, IBM algorithms research team describes “Watson is like the internet, when it came around no one knew what to expect. Now the internet is part of daily life, Watson has that potential.”

Watson can solve problems that humans truly care about. For example, Watson could be the “holy grail” for medical care. Watson can store all written text about medical treatments or diagnostics. Imagine a world where a doctor doesn’t have to guess your disease and within seconds knows the best treatment available for you. Watson would provide that (“Watson after Jeopardy”).

The concept of machine learning has already been incorporated into daily life. Machine learning is used at amazon.com. All the recommendations that Amazon gives you is based off of machine learning. The weather uses machine learning to look at past examples of hurricanes and track their patterns. Speech recognition uses machine learning to pick up patterns in an individual’s voice. This type of recognition is also being used in iPad translation systems (Anderson).

In the business world, Watson can make the world more productive and efficient by studying workers and evaluating their performance. Not only can Watson help on a physical level, it can help the business financially. Watson can change the way a business runs. Watson has the capability of analyzing financial numbers and predicting the outcomes and how it will affect the business world. This type of technology can help in stock market crashes and even now in the recession.

Watson’s power is unlimited. The world doesn’t know the full potential of the “World’s Smartest Computer” it can only hope that Watson will be used for the greater good of humanity. Watson is a machine that understands and functions like the human brain. As host of Jeopardy, Alex Trebec said “[Watson] doesn’t get everything right but it’s rarely wrong” (“Will Watson Win Jeopardy”). To live in a world that things are rarely wrong was once unimaginable, Watson brings the dream into a reachable range.