Cognitive Software Group — Loose Lips Sink AI Ships

Cognitive Computing is not an IBM Fraud

In February, a couple of weeks ago, Dr. Roger Schank castigated IBM. Accusing IBM of “fraud”, Dr Schank asserted “they are not doing “cognitive computing” no matter how many times they say they are”.

Dr Schank has been CEO of Socratic Arts since 2002, is a prolific publisher of articles and books, and formerly holding positions including Professor of Computer Science and Psychology at Yale University and Director of the Yale Artificial Intelligence Project (1974–1989), a visiting professor at the University of Paris VII, Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Computer Science at Stanford University (1968–1973), and research fellow at the Institute for Semantics and Cognition in Switzerland.

What attracted Dr Schank’s ire was a proclamation from an IBM Vice President of Marketing, Ann Rubin, that IBM’s Watson AI platform could “outthink” human brains in areas where finding insights and connections can be difficult due to the abundance of data.

“You can outthink cancer, outthink risk, outthink doubt, outthink competitors if you embrace this idea of cognitive computing,” she apparently said.

In 2018, IBM’s Australian advertising agency ran a campaign called “Outthink Melanoma” that appeared to be based on using Machine Learning pattern recognition techniques to identify melanoma, rather than AI or “cognitive” anything.