Ms. Rometty acknowledged some jobs will become obsolete because of AI. History, though, has demonstrated that technological breakthroughs lead to new employment opportunities, she said.
“There’s so much fear about jobs,” she said. “But most of us will be working with these systems.”
So one interpretation of this article would be that IBM will be using Watson to create RA's: genius!
[Entire article quoted below link]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-chief-predicts-artificial-intelligence-wont-be-a-job-killer-1484669444
Advances in artificial intelligence will lead to job losses, but new forms of employment will take their place, International Business Machines Corp. Chief Executive Ginni Rometty said Tuesday.
For artificial intelligence such as IBM’s Watson to succeed, companies need to build the trust of prospective users, Ms. Rometty said at a World Economic Forum panel in Davos, Switzerland. “It’s not man or machine,” she said. “It’s a symbiotic relationship. Our purpose is to augment and be in service of what humans do.”
Fears over the impact of AI were a central theme of the panel, run by Vista Equity Partners founder Robert F. Smith. In addition to Ms. Rometty, the panel featured Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab director Joichi Ito and HealthTap Inc. CEO Ron Gutman.
AI offers a wide range of potential benefits for people in areas such as financial services, health care and education, the panelists said. But before releasing any AI products into the wild, companies need to do extensive testing to ensure users have a safe experience, Mr. Nadella said.
He recounted a story in which AI software helped a man discover his toothache was actually a symptom of a heart attack. Still, he said, AI errors could put lives at risk, particularly when it comes to the health field.
“The software-engineering infrastructure is where have to make a lot of investments,” Mr. Nadella said. “You can’t make mistakes.”
Companies dealing with AI need to be transparent about the data that goes into products and explain how those products are trained to interpret that data, Ms. Rometty said. “With any new technology, we all, particularly here, have to think about how to develop trust and that is around transparency and a set of principles.”
A diverse slate of engineering talent can help broaden AI’s potential, Mr. Ito said. “When the people who are actually doing the work actually create the tools, you get much better tools.”
Ms. Rometty acknowledged some jobs will become obsolete because of AI. History, though, has demonstrated that technological breakthroughs lead to new employment opportunities, she said.
“There’s so much fear about jobs,” she said. “But most of us will be working with these systems.”