IBM Opens Its Artificial Mind To The World

Artificial intelligence is the big, oft-misconstrued catchphrase of the day, making headlines recently with the launch of the new OpenAI organization, backed by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and other tech luminaries. AI is neither a synonym for killer robots nor a technology of the future, but one that is already finding new signals in the vast noise of collected data, ranging from weather reports to social media chatter to temperature sensor readings. Today IBM has opened up new access to its AI system, called Watson, with a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow other companies and organizations to feed their data into IBM's big brain for analysis. Real AI isn't about building a know-it-all computer, but rather one that's a good learner, able to sort overwhelming amounts of data, and diligently catalog recurring patterns. For example, while working with sensor readings and other flight data from airliners, AI might spot the conditions that caused a plane to burn up too much fuel, a project that IBM is already undertaking with plane manufacturer Airbus.