Cognitive Computing: The future of the world
Technology has been evolving ever since it has come into existence. Beginning with the hand axes, a tool used by primitives; to the Humanoid Robots, mankind has taken technological developments to a whole new level. One such development is Cognitive Computing.
What is Cognitive Computing?
The Human Brain is a piece of art! The manner in which it thinks is beyond imaginable and “mimicking Human Brain into a computerized system,” is called Cognitive Computing. It is a combination of computer science and cognitive science. Fundamentally, cognitive identifies with logical thought, awareness, and mental process which is the thing a human brain does this is what is being imitated into a Personal Computer (PC).
Example
For a better understanding of Cognitive Computing let’s take an example. Imagine cognitive computing as applied to a Career Consultant.
A career consultant is someone who knows and understands your educational qualification, achievements, likes, strengths, and experiences. The consultant at the same time is also aware of the numerous industries, companies, and the latest trends in the same. They then suggest the best career options.
Computers, for ages, have been trying to do so. And it is possible now with Cognitive Computing. A cognitive computer is like a career consultant. It collects the data share and draws conclusions with even better precision than humans.
Key Attributes
Cognitive Computing represents the Third era of computing and it works through self-learning technologies such as data mining, natural language processing, machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, data mining, speech recognition, visuals, data analysis, big data, etc. In order to solve problems like a human being is tasked to requires huge amounts of various machine learning algorithms. And to achieve such capabilities, the Cognitive Computing Consortium has listed the following key attributes that a cognitive computing system must have:
- Adaptive: It has to mimic the ability of the human brain of adapting and learning from its surroundings. It should also be dynamic and flexible in gathering data and understanding the goals.
- Interactive: Interaction is a two-way process and the human brain interacts with all its organs, similarly cognitive computing should also interact with all the elements in its system such as the user, the processor, etc. The cognitive system must also understand human data and provide relevant results through natural language processing and deep learning
- Iterative and Stateful: The Cognitive system should remember previous interactions and provide necessary information whenever needed. It should also be able to identify problems by asking questions and also extract additional data if the problem is vague or incomplete.
- Contextual: Understanding, identifying, and extracting contextual data such as meaning, time, location, user profile, the syntax is a must for a Cognitive system. If necessary, they may draw on various sources of information that include structured and unstructured data, visual and sensor data.
Similarities and Differences between AI & Cognitive Computing
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing are often used interchangeably but in practicality and approach, both are quite different.
Similarities
The similarities between AI and cognitive computing are quite obvious. Both the technologies can perform human tasks faster and with much more precision than humans whilst being able to do much more than what a human does.
Both run on technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, etc.
Differences
AI is intelligence that is exhibited by machines via a set of theories, methods, and algorithms.
Cognitive Computing is a subfield and a step ahead of AI. It mimics human intelligence and focuses on reasoning and understanding at a higher level.
The differences between these are subtle but real. Yet the aim of both these technologies remains the same i.e. to simplify tasks for humans.
IBM Watson
One example of cognitive systems is IBM Watson. It is a question-answering computer system initially developed to answer questions on the quiz show Jeopardy wherein 2011 it won against champions, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. Watson is capable of answering questions that are posed in natural language. As it is written on IBM’s website – IBM Watson is AI for business. It serves as AI for customer service, supply chain, advertising, IT & Financial operations, and much more. It uses Natural Language Processing, Automation, accuracy, visual, open source, etc.
Case Study relating to IBM Watson
Be it a company, industry, or bank “Customers” are very important. They always try to make it easier, understandable, affordable, and personalized for their customers. We here have a case study on Bradesco, one of Brazil’s largest banks with over 5,200 branches. When branch members had questions about their products and services they called up the central office but were often kept on a long wait for answers. That is when they noticed that if they are being kept on wait then so are the clients.
In order to improve personalization and increase their services, they started looking for possibilities. They then turned towards IBM and Watson. Watson was trained on how to respond to customer queries. It was tried and tested several times that its response time reduced from 10 minutes to just a few seconds. And that’s how Bradesco upped and keeps to one of the leading banks in Brazil.
Applications of Cognitive Computing
- Education: In educational institutions, it is basically one single teacher handling a bunch of students. But with cognitive computing, each student can have a teacher of their own since it remembers every small detail and will help in better performance of the student.
- Research: Research requires working on data and cognitive computing gives faster and accurate results in a much lesser time than humans can.
- Healthcare: It can help by analyzing a patient’s history and current state and suggest possible treatments and diagnosis to the doctor.
Conclusion
Cognitive computing has already proven that it is quicker and accurate than humans. And in the coming years, every sector will be equipped with Cognitive Technology. It will revolutionize the world. This is a start towards adopting innovative technology for a brighter and efficient future
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