IBM Watson Can Save the World or Destroy It – the Perils of Misplaced AI

October 30, 2014 – IBM is using its Jeopardy-winning technology to help with medical diagnostics. That’s a good thing. It is also being used to help businesses make better decisions. Also a good thing. But today I read that Watson is also going to be used to find new oil fields. What are they thinking?

Applying IBM’s cognitive technology to analyze enormous amounts of data collected by geological engineers is a great demonstration of its big-data capability, but with a world awash in oil and climate change the driving force for the development of low carbon economic models, just what is the point? It is not like the fossil fuel industry needs more assets to strand in the near future as the nations of our planet address carbon reduction and climate mitigation strategies.

But go figure. The IBM Cognitive Environments Laboratory along with Repsol, Spain’s largest energy company, are out to apply AI tools to finding oil and gas, building a conceptual model. Let’s hope they include carbon risk to the planet in their equations. Then maybe Watson when asked about the likelihood of finding oil will respond with “Are you nuts?”