The Surreal Intelligence of Computing

Source:articles.cnn.com
" If computer reach to the point where it could understand sarcasm, we are doomed" Tariq Ezzibdeh

Source:mis.eller.arizona.edu
The age of computing and artificial intelligence has come a long way since the Abacus and the Gear based machines inventions. Well these are just mechanical devices which in our day many would not consider as "computing devices". As far as most people are concerned, the modern era of computing started with rise of digital and electrical computers. The age of Microprocessors, transistors, and chips shaped the world of technology today, creating powerful computers at which computers started taking over many jobs and marked the beginning of an Informations Age.
Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, stated a popular vital computing law, " the number of transistors on a chip will double every two years". There are some physical limitation to computation but a computer scientist Raymond Kurzweil stated that "There are physical limits to computation, but they're not very limiting." This means that the cybernetic revolt is likely to occur, maybe not in the sense that Will Smith played in his movie I,Robot but it certainly means that computers will and already outsmart humans in a lot of ways except emotions.
We have seen many incidents were a computer beats the 'human race'. The machine vs human stories all started when an American Folk hero John Henry decides to challenge the steam-powered drills during the building of railroads in the 1800s, even though he wins , Henry dies of exhaustion. Thus marking the battle between humans and machines. Another famous moment, is the computer named 'Deep Blue' beating the world champion Kasparov in chess. However, a more recent story that clearly recorded a big win is the new IBM supercomputer 'Watson'. The computer managed to beat Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, two former strong champions at Jeopardy!. The supercomputer has over 15 terabytes of RAM, (for those who aren't into computing that is a lot of memory , with the ability to process hundreds of millions of pages!).
Computational Intelligence has changed the stock market as we knew it, with the loss of the 1929 image of screaming traders at the floor of the NYSE with just digital tablets predicting the market behavior. With the rise of algorithmic trading, trade has changed drastically. With faster platforms, and better cost as market trades become more efficient. Unfortunately, the market scenes with guys running on the floor with buyers and sellers which has become more of a bygone industry over the years.
Everyday we are witnessing the advancements of computing and artificial intelligence in various fields, a field that I have became fond of as it have had myriad benefits in business, law, medicine , astronomy, and other fields. But let's not forget we have built computer which makes humans more complex and a more intelligent species yet until computers have the ability to understand sarcasm I think we are safe.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2049187_2049195_2049266,00.html #ixzz1EGX8Uun9