Watson's 7th Sense

"We are what we are connected to" - Joshua Cooper Ramo

Machine Learning is at the peak of Gartner's hype cycle with fast followers: cognitive assistants and connected home. Every morning I read a new press release and every night I see a new commercial on TV. However, in my day job I evaluate the viability of AI - Watson and our competitors - across a multitude of use cases.

I'm bullish on digital voice assistants: AI in my car. AI in my home. AI in my ear. I want my AI to be omniscient but I expect more than an enigma. If it's going to know me by my voice, then I expect to know what's behind the curtain. It's my telecommunications background that causes me to check every point of failure, especially where a failure can compromise my privacy and personal security.

Uptime and reliability are increasingly important as we come to rely on AI. I expect five 9s from my telco and also my AI. Virtualization and cloud data centers are designed to be fully redundant, with mirrored servers that are geographically dispersed and unlikely to be impacted by severe weather events or hackers. If I share financial or healthcare information, HIPAA and PCI regulations insure my privacy and I expect the same from my AI assistant.

Furthermore, my ideas are my own and I express them in my own words. So, I expect a trusted AI provider to secure and filter my conversations based on my permissions and preferences. If I'm shopping for clothes, it's ok to recommend a new jacket that I left in the shopping cart. If I'm checking Web MD then I may opt-in for correlation to my child's medical records and genomic sequencing but I don't want to see a pop-up for Ritalin. If I'm looking for a new job, a relevant offer will be appreciated but please don't send my inquiry to my current employer. And, if I'm scheduling a meeting with my client, it's ideal to place it on my calendar but I trust that my AI won't send a lead to my competitor.

We're in the early stages of AI and recommendations are modeled after search engines. From what I've seen, businesses and consumers want more sophisticated AI. There are subtle complexities to our individual preferences. Today's digital voice assistants are the building blocks for sage assistants that will benefit from machine learning. Our experiences with digital assistants will improve with time and increasing connectivity to a variety of data sources. With increasing complexity, security and privacy will become paramount.

In the book "Seventh Sense", Joshua Cooper Ramo, co-CEO of Kissinger Associates, describes those of us who understand how networks function as having a seventh sense to make decisions on instinct in this ever-evolving, rapid paced technology revolution. "We are what we are connected to." Knowledge. Experiences. People. Data Centers. Security Operations. Networks.

Watson is connected to IBM networks, both human and technological. It's where I've placed my trust for AI. Who do you trust?