We all forget things all the time – names, keys, birthdays and appointments. But with IBM’s cognitive assistant, forgetting might just be a thing of the past.
GOOGLE YOUR MIND – FOR NOW, COGNITIVE ASSISTANT WORKS MOSTLY WITH PEOPLE SUFFERING SOME FORM OF MEMORY LOSS
Human memory is all about context
According to IBM inventor James R. Kozloski human memory works very differently from computer memory. Quoted in the Atlantic Kozloski says that, unlike computers: “[w]e don’t have pointers. We don’t have addresses where we can just look up the data we need.”
Instead we rely on context and contextual association. That’s why the smell of newly laid asphalt can bring back memories of your first skateboard. That’s why names rarely stick in our memory until you associate a person with something specific, something personal.
Curing tip-of-the-tongue-syndrome
IBM cognitive assistant is currently just a patent, but when it becomes a fully functioning aide-mémoire it promises to cure us of ailments like tip-of-the-tongue-syndrome and similar glitches in memory.
It will do so using a combination of observation, machine learning and predictive modelling, understanding when someone has forgotten something – and then providing the correct cue, like your own personal prompter on the stage of everyday life.
Or think of it like an autocomplete when you’ve forgotten how to spell ‘zeitgeist’.
The computers are watching (and learning)
A well-functioning cognitive assistant will have to learn how to adopt to an individual’s daily routines, their speech-patterns and other idiosyncrasies. It will have to learn how not to interrupt and become a nuisance.
It will learn to do so by monitoring and observing a person’s behaviour through a multitude of sensors and trackers. Over time the computer will “get to know” you and become a trusted companion.
In a way you will be outsourcing parts of your memory. And perhaps over time you will start to forget even more and need the cognitive assistance more acutely, until you have no more memories and you and your computer stop functioning.
It can seem like a terrifying vision. As if the computer has become a parasite living off your memory and eradicating it in the process.
As they say: memory is a muscle – it needs occasional flexing to work properly.
Helping the elderly
For now Kozloski sees the cognitive assistant working mostly with people suffering some form of memory loss, like Alzheimer’s patients, or simply elderly people experiencing a lack of short-term memory.
The cognitive assistant would give these people the chance of functioning better again, “to interact with others, take care of themselves, clothe themselves, cook meals.”
It would also be a great help to caregivers who could consult the computer’s ‘history’ to see what kind of things their patient is struggling with.
On the other hand one could see the cognitive assistant eliminate the need for a caregiver in the first place, removing a crucial human bond in the process. Taking over or replacing a human mind’s functions with computer technology will always come with unforeseen consequences.
Google your mind
The real interesting step would be when the cognitive assistant could work as your search-engine-interface to your mind. Imagine asking questions about yourself and your learning simply by thinking and then getting the answer read aloud to you in your earpiece.
One problem might be the contextual ads propping up unwanted.