The Watson 2016 Foundation wants you to vote for an AI to be POTUS
The Watson 2016 Foundation is an independent organization formed for the advocacy of the artificial intelligence known as Watson to run for President of The United States of America. It is our belief that Watson’s unique capabilities to assess information and make informed and transparent decisions define it as an ideal candidate for the job responsibilities required by the president.
Okay, so it’s a publicity stunt by IBM but isn’t it an interesting idea? Just imagine Watson, IBM’s AI computer system that beat humans playing Jeopardy, in the role of President and Computer-in-Chief. Decisions would be made incredibly fast based on a vast corpus of facts and knowledge … or would they? Is it possible to provide an enormous library of information for Watson to chew on that wouldn’t have political bias built in? Would it be possible for Watson to filter out bias automatically? Perhaps the best place to start is to give Watson a cabinet post, say, secretary of energy and see how that works out.
I wonder whether President Trump will go for such a novel appointment?
Mark Gibbs is an author, journalist, and man of mystery. His writing for Network World is widely considered to be vastly underpaid. For more than 30 years, Gibbs has consulted, lectured, and authored numerous articles and books about networking, information technology, and the social and political issues surrounding them. His complete bio can be found at http://gibbs.com/mgbio
