By Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Contributor for In Homeland Security
It is possible to envision a world in the near future, ten years out, where humans are not just aided by the company of intelligent machines, but are nurtured by them as well, where they receive the best advice from them in natural language. Could these artificial intelligence machines be used beyond military and intelligence frame of mind? Could the cognitive computing or machine learning trends help American diplomacy gaming simulations?
The bottom line is that there is just too much information for humans to sift through on their own in real-time and they need better and better tools to do it. Most of the information being produced is done by machines and sensors alone already. To sort through massive data more efficiently and communicate with the machine world, an ever increasing more sophisticated translator is required. This applies to security as well as the day-to-day machine-to-machine communications within the internet of things (IoT) age. The IoT is bringing the internet and digital machine world closer to the real world and the real world integrated into the cyberworld.
In effect, there are now three reality dimensions critical to human society: an exclusively automated machine, a machine-to-human and a natural human dimension.
IBM’s supercomputer named Watson is one of the larger attempts in a transitioning social computational atmosphere and providing automated cloud services. In fact, IBM is hoping that the entire direction of its business is a revolutionary moment in combining programmatic, self-learning and cognitive computing. It is already offering services in health care to help physicians retrieve the most relevant data in response to the inquiry or diagnostic parameters. This will be massive for protecting corporate cloud data in shutting down access points and managing overall efficiencies.
Watson’s debut on the mind challenging television show Jeopardy proved a surprising success in 2011. Watson defeated the Jeopardy giants Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. The complexity of questions and the fact that Watson had no internet connection. The next real challenge will of course be when all of those servers that make up Watson can fit into a machine that weighs the same as a human, but until then, this is a breakthrough in its early stages.
We are now three years away from Watson’s Jeopardy stardom. IBM is linking the intelligent supercomputer to consulting services from the health industry, research, business performance enhancement, etc. It is already set out to improve health and business management, so why not international political management?
Smart analytics platforms like Watson is the next step after Big Data. Other companies are also working on similar artificial intelligence designs. SparkCognition’s MindSpark is one other cognitive computer with promise that creates mathematical models using big data analytics and prediction software. Can communicate with other intelligent machines—MindSpark was reported to has connected with Watson.
Pushing the present computational environment from smart data retrieval to the real digital personal assistant devices that will act as organizers and secretaries. Most of them are cloud based now, but like the supercomputer to the ipod nano, they are expected to be downsized (e.g. Cortana, Hal, Siri) and localized, eventually. Home computers and personal clouds broadcast from an individual’s home is one possibility that has some room to trend forward.
The State Department’s utilization of IBM’s Watson for optimizing foreign policy actions appears an essential instrument in an increasingly automated world. Imagine sifting through international data compared to domestic traffic and what advantage a nation with the superior supercomputer AI could achieve in: diplomacy gaming, virtual digital diplomacy, artificial strategic analysis support, modeling, research, policy validity; treaty formation, cooperation, trade agreements, human rights, international law, public diplomacy, etc.? Providing other states with diplomatic AI systems that would encourage the most benign and optimized paths would certainly be beneficial to everyone. A computational arms race with a slogan, “May the best AI win,” is also possible.
For better defense and diplomacy, America, the modern world and gradually the rest, will have to rely on intelligent machines to sustain the increasingly complex world they have created. What is tragic will be if American leadership is caught without utilizing this technological superiority; especially, in regards to its strategic diplomacy. But pioneering the technology would be the best way forward.
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