Welcome to Watson West

Ok, first - New York is great and everything – the hustle and bustle, the sirens, sights, the sounds, the attitudes – and the pride, but.....I. Love. San. Francisco. The weather, the wine, the tech, the vibe - and the love.  I love San Francisco so much I worry I left my heart in San Francisco  (again) this week.

As I fly back home from our Watson West (San Francisco) lab/studio/centre, and reflect on my time there, I want to begin to share what I can from the session with Watson. It was >so< great.

I could (and may) write half a dozen posts on the power of Machine Learning/AI/Cognitive, but the most powerful element I took away this may be that it's becoming increasingly evident that to achieve the best outcomes, certainly for now, that we must stop the distracting rhetoric of the decline of civilization and dangers caused by automation and emerging tech like AI.

Instead, we worked through a case where Watson is assisting in disease diagnosis for doctors - certainly a problem space big enough to benefit from the power of cognitive - and of course, a space rewarding to invest in. To benefit from this new tech, we need humans and machines working together – not 'either/or', - instead, 'and'. That's where the synergies are - and we need to capitalize on them - together.

The power of humans and machines – working together - Augmented Intelligence, not Artificial Intelligence.

There are hundreds of books and points of view being written about AI - and the fear that robots and AI are going to take our jobs. Watson takes a different approach - a different mindset. It’s the difference between AI – Artificial Intelligence and AI - Augmented Intelligence. In many ways it feels like a small nuance, while at the same time that difference is a very big deal. Less substitution and more integration.

When looking through the Augmented Intelligence lens, new capabilities become less threatening, enabling us to accept and leverage the incredible computing power and software to become an instrument, a tool, to aide us.

Cognitive can provide insights, to identify opportunities and risk - to offer us alternatives that would have taken too long to identify - if we were ever able to be recognize them at all.

It is up to us and our creativity, our instinct and our ability to connect with one another to capitalize on the new capabilities - in effect to augment ourselves. Less an artificial form of ourselves, rather a partner and advisor that we team with as we seek to solve and conquer our largest challenges.

Watson West was great, SF was great, and to top it off, a trip to the San Francisco Levis Store is always the best conclusion to a trip west. Made and Crafted Levis are becoming the formal wear of the digital reinvention scene!