Deus Ex Machina: new technologies compete with man for prestigious jobs

IBM's Super Computer "Liebniz" in Germany

In 2011 IBM’s supercomputer Watson defeated world jeopardy champion Ken Jenning and made a big dent in the egos everywhere as man’s superior intelligence was now bested. IBM has recently redirected Watson’s abilities toward providing medical diagnoses, claiming it can make diagnoses far more accurately than any doctor while being more cost effective.

            The industrial revolution hit the working class hard, but now advanced computing technologies are competing for the most esteemed jobs held by humans. Computers like Watson, as well as quantum computers such as NASA’s D-Wave, which are still in their infancy will start to display the true extent of their abilities as quantum computing is starting to come to the for-front of contemporary science.

           IBM has already started showcased some of these abilities in Watson’s medical diagnostic abilities.

“It would take at least 160 hours of reading a week just to keep up with new medical knowledge as it's published, let alone consider its relevance or apply it practically. Watson's ability to absorb this information faster than any human should, in theory, fix a flaw in the current healthcare model. Wellpoint's Samuel Nessbaum has claimed that, in tests, Watson's successful diagnosis rate for lung cancer is 90 percent, compared to 50 percent for human doctors.”

An article by Wired magazine Reports

            In  1996 IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue defeated Gary Kasparov the world chess champion resulting in a rage of denial on behalf of Kasparov, who claimed there was no way a machine could out reason a human being in a game involving such complex adaptive strategy.

           But it is still unclear the extent such machines will come to play in prestigious jobs, they may act as a supplemental devices that guide decision making processes by doctors, not replace them entirely.

Some argue that there is an intuitive element that goes into medical diagnosis process which a machine just couldn’t provide. Dr. Gurpreet Dhaliwal is considered one of the most best diagnosticians in the world today and his process seems to involve such reasoning processes that are uniquely human.

“An expert clinical diagnostician like Dr. Dhaliwal might make a decision without being able to explain exactly what is going on in the back of his mind, as his subconscious continuously sifts the wheat from the chaff.”

The New York Times reports

           These machines are also extremely expensive, making it unclear how far way such technologies are from becoming practical for commercial use. Google’s supercomputer ran a bill of $10 Million, the tech giant has utilized supercomputer to help explore blink-based app access for the upcoming product google glass. Quantum computers also require their processors to be super-chilled to sub-zero temperatures, which is extremely expensive. Google was stuck with the bill from running their supercomputer during the government shutdown even though no experiments could be conducted.

           Supercomputers have the potential to create new medicines by being able to analyze chemical compounds on a scale unknown to human chemists as well as making performing calculations beyond any mathematician. This leaves room for questions of weather these people in these industries should welcome these new technologies as friends, or be wary of them as competitors.