I would like to share with you interesting YouTube videos about IBM Project Debater. It is the first artificial intelligence system that can debate humans on complex topics. The clip was published about a year ago and the project itself is a research that IBM has been working on since 2012.

The video displayed the highlights of the first full live debate between an AI debater against, the 2016 World Debating Championships Grand Finalist and 2012 European Debate Champion Harish Natarajan. Both were only given 15 minutes of preparation time before the topic was revealed.

Harish was no doubt a great and well articulated debater. However, I was completely stunned with how cohesive AI managed to address arguments on topic “Whether or not pre-schools should be subsidized”. It was incredible, yet hard to believe how can it be so close to perfection? I was expecting a slight error on the system or atleast a redundancy exhibited in addresing arguments since it uses learning algorithm. Though Harish eventually won the battle, it is how fast AI has been progressing through time that left indelible imprint on my mind.

Could AI supersede human’s wisdom? Simply no in my humble opinion. I am not an expert in AI, nor I understand much about deep learning. But one thing without question the AI is a system which requires consistently large flow of input to establish neural networks. The more input it receives, the better training of algorithm it achieves, to the point where it almost gives near perfect response. We human are the input in which AI uses to produce an output. How can then AI be wiser than us when they in fact use us as the input? Put it short, AI is not a true knowledge, it is simply a blackbox that produces knowledge which is sourced from the true human knowledge.

We are not in the race with AI nor we are in competition with it. On the other hand, we need to see it as a tool that would equip us to face a more challenging and complex world problems.
The ultimate purpose of the project debater, as DR. Rahit Aharonov stated is to demonstrate a technology that has a power to aid the decision making process among people by bringing facts and different kind of argumentations.

I couldn’t agree more to what she stated as when it comes to critical decision-making, we are often conflicted with our (unconscious)biases. It is human nature that our integrity comprises not only with competence, but also emotions to some extent. The AI in this case helps us to provide a more objective, less political and healthy decisions that will benefit towards all social layers. It is a useful tool that could serve as a mirror for us to reflect, improve our decision-making abilities and constructively criticize ourselves in order to be a better leader.


Full-debate version