AI, cognitive realities and quantum futures - IBM's Head of Cognitive Solutions explains

One of the most interesting sessions at the recent Dreamforce conference was the fireside chat with IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, an hour long discussion that covered a lot of ground. In the mix were some compelling views on AI, both in terms of its potential for good, but also of the responsibilities that came with such new tech. Time constraints restricted the amount of discussion that could take place at Dreamforce, so it was good to see many of the topics and concerns alluded to by Rometty picked up in more detail by Doctor John Kelly, Head of Cognitive Solutions and IBM Research, at the 21st Annual Credit Suisse Technology, Media & Telecoms Conference this week. Cognitive is IBM's preferred terminology for a range of tech that covers AI, machine-learning et al. Kelly took time out to define some of IBM's nomenclatures and categorisations, beginning with Narrow AI: This is machine learning to simply identify patterns of things. In the case of imaging, lots of companies use very narrow AI to sort through the pictures that you store on the cloud or on your phone, as an example, to identify family members or cats or pets or whatever, or an industry to find defects in products like pharmaceuticals, that's very narrow, reinforced learning technology.