A question of computers and artificial intelligence - BBC News

There are moments that live on in business history. One of them is the cry: "Mr Watson come here, I want to see you," spoken by Alexander Graham Bell back in 1876, in the world's first telephone conversation. Another significant moment was the day in 1997 when the IBM computer called Deep Blue beat the then world champion Gary Kasparov at chess. And then another IBM moment in 2011 when an even more intelligent computer called Watson -after the IBM founder Thomas Watson and his IBM chief executive son Thomas - won the TV game Jeopardy against human competition. These last two IBM contests demonstrate - we're told - big advances in machine intelligence.