What's up with Watson?

(How about this? A second two-entry day in a week. What's up with that?)

I noticed that Watson beat the best two human competitors at Jeopardy. Nice. The Internet has been buzzing over this. Is it good news or bad? Are computers catching up with humans? Is the Terminator just around the corner?

Who is Watson? Well, Watson is an IBM product, a room-sized supercomputer who can push the button faster than humans can and recall more data at will than its competitors could. Impressive, really, but not so much.

Let me tell you what Watson cannot do. The other day I was taking a walk and heard a bird. In the instant that the sound reached my ears, without conscious analysis, I knew that I was hearing a cardinal. In the next instant my brain had moved the necessary muscles to orient my gaze in three-dimensional space to the direction and height of the bird where my eyes located and confirmed the identification. The only conscious thought was "Cardinal". Nothing more. We take it for granted, but that's just amazing. Using two ears and associated controls and memory and, finally, two eyes, my brain was able to identify and locate this bird in less than a second. Watson can't do that.

If Watson loses a memory cell, it's a lost cell. My body is constantly replacing lost cells.

If Watson gets damaged, it remains damaged. My body repairs itself.

Watson cannot use intuition. Probability, certainly, but not intuition. Humans do it all the time.

Do you know what else Watson cannot do? Watson cannot pick up an egg. Silly, I know. Watson has no hands. But consider the complexity of the problem. You have to be able to tell the strength of the item you are about to pick up and know how much pressure you can (or can't) apply. You have to sense its surface to know that it will or will not slip. You have to monitor it as you lift it to be sure your grip remains firm without doing damage. All of this occurs without a single conscious thought. Getting a machine to do it? Not so easy.

More than that, without being consciously aware of how or why, I can look at my wife and tell if she's happy or sad. Watson can't do that. I can thrill from her hand on mine. Watson can't feel, let alone enjoy it.

Some are wondering if machines are getting nearly human. It talked, after all. It recognized speech, didn't it? (Well, sort of. As it turns out, the questions were fed in electronically, not spoken.) It could call on vast information. Very impressive. It was indeed an awesome display of human ingenuity. Still, the human brain operates faster than any computer can to date and does more than any computer can to date and much of it without conscious effort on the part of the owner. You can detect nuance, body language, feelings, impressions. And, remember, Watson was a room-sized computer. We do it all in these compact, highly mobile (and even attractive) forms. Machines are getting better and faster, but humans still have the edge.

Something else that is of vital importance. Watson can't glorify God. I, on the other hand, was built to do just that. There's something that machines will never be able to do.