IBM to integrate AI debating technology into its Q&A computer system Watson

Amid recent advances in artificial intelligence, what was once thought of as science fiction – such as having an intelligent conversation with a machine – is now closer to reality.

IBM announced on Tuesday plans to commercialise its Project Debater technology, an AI system able to debate humans on complex topics in real-time.

Although a long way from Westworld, the 1973 movie about a futuristic theme park where paying guests could pretend to be gunslingers in an artificial Wild West populated by androids, it does signal that human/machine interaction is about to enter a new era.

IBM plans to integrate several key components, such as natural language processing (NLP), from the AI system into its question-answering computer system Watson from March this year. The move is aimed at “enabling businesses to capture, analyse, and understand more from human language and … transform how they use intellectual capital that’s codified in data.”

The most important technology behind Project Debater is NLP, which is a branch of advanced AI aimed at enabling communications between man and machine by using human language. NLP remains a challenge due to the inherent nuances and subtleties of human languages.