IBM's Robot Debater Takes on Humans...and May Change Some Minds
*By: Britt Terrell*
IBM Research conducted the first live debate between a human and a machine this week, showing off the company's latest development in artificial intelligence.
Project Debater squared off against two experts in rhetoric Monday night, responding to and delivering its own arguments. The technology, which ingests information from newspaper articles and other sources to put together well-structured speech and deliver a response, was even able to convince some audience members to change their minds.
"This is a great tool for helping educate the public," said Arvind Krishna, SVP & Director of IBM Research. "They could ask it a question, and 'Debater' can then look through and say, 'Look, based on everything I've read, here is an informed opinion on what everybody's thinking and saying.'"
When it comes to using the machine to help humans formulate opinions, though, especially in an age when fake news has run rampant on certain sites, Debater's powers could raises some concerns. But Krishna pointed out that humans are subject to the same pitfalls.
"What the Debater will do is it won't stick only to the fake news, it will give other \[opinions\], so you really get a complete and comprehensive \[response\]."
Debater is not the first example of high-functioning A.I. to come out of IBM. The company's Watson technology showed off against Jeopardy! champions in 2011, and its 'Deep Blue' program famously bested chess champion Garry Kasparov back in 1997.
But there is still work to be done on the Debater software. And while Krishna dismissed criticisms that its voice was too robotic ー Google, after all, drew jabs for its [all-too-human-sounding Duplex](https://cheddar.com/videos/was-googles-duplex-demo-real) ー he acknowledged some room for improvement.
"How do you throw humor in, when do you throw humor in?" he asked. "Like when it makes a joke like, 'If I had blood, my blood would boil, but I don't really have blood.'"
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/ibms-newest-a-i-project).
Online platform Assemble is looking to provide career instruction and inspiration to Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) of all age groups for access to industries they might not have been privy to prior. Actor, activist, and one of Assemble's three co-founders, Jesse Williams, and CEO Cortney Woodruff joined Cheddar's "Between Bells" to discuss the Assemble mission and what people can expect from the program. "There's a lot of jobs that folks don't know even exist in the first place, and what we know is that there are incredible innovators at the peak of their field that are Black and brown – in every single field," Williams noted.
Payoneer CEO Scott Galit joined Wake Up With Cheddar to talk about the company's partnership with Walmart to provide working capital to retailers on Walmart's marketplace.
Between uncertainty over the Omicron variant, and the possibility of a sooner-than-expected taper from the Fed, it was an especially volatile week for the markets. The release of the November jobs report on Friday, with job growth coming in way lower than estimates also caused movement on the market. Frances Stacy, Director of Strategy at Optimal Capital explains why all of this, combined with Bitcoin’s huge drop over the weekend, could make for another rough week for investors.
Ahead of Instagram head Adam Mosseri's congressional hearing on the mental impact of the social platform on teens, the company announced a number of updates aimed at teen safety.
Developers for the video game "Call of Duty: Warzone" staged a walkout in protest of 12 quality assurance testers being laid off by parent company Activision Blizzard. This marks the latest work stoppage for the embattled game publishing giant.
Earlier this year, JetBlue flew its inaugural flight into the United Kingdom. It was a game changer — not only did the airline enter the transatlantic market, but the plane that completed the flight was a single-aisle jet. For decades, flying the distance was synonymous with jumbo jets, but today narrow-body aircraft are now proving they are up for the task — and maybe even the best option. In this episode, Cheddar examines why airlines are betting on narrow-body aircraft.
2022 is just around the corner and one of the world's most famous trendspotters says that there is a wide-ranging mix of trends coming up in the new year that could impact businesses, culture, and our society at large.
Trendspotter and cultural zeitgeist analyst Marian Salzman, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Spotify has just officially released its 2021 'Wrapped'. For the past few years, the streaming giant has been presenting customers with their listening habits from the prior year, including favorite artists, most listened to the genre, podcasts, songs you name it. However, critics say this method just shows how apps can collect our data. CEO of Prevailion Karim Hijazi, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Recent internal documents obtained by the New York Times reveal how exactly TikTok's algorithm works. The report highlights how the app is mainly focused on retaining two metrics which are retention and time spent. In addition, the document titled, "TikTok Algo 101" details how the algorithm understands human nature from when we get bored to our sensitivity and culture ques. It means the app monitors will kind of videos you like. Professor of Computer Science at the University of California in San Diego Julian McCauley, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Carlo and Baker discuss the sweeping new vaccine mandate in NYC that will target all private businesses. Plus, Trump's media venture gets its CEO and more.
