Cognitive computing (CC) refers to technology platforms that, broadly speaking, are based on the scientific disciplines of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

and

signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing '' signals'', such as sound, images, and scientific measurements. Signal processing techniques are used to optimize transmissions, ...

. These platforms encompass

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

reasoning Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, lang ...

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to proc ...

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ma ...

and

vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...

(

object recognition Object recognition – technology in the field of computer vision for finding and identifying objects in an image or video sequence. Humans recognize a multitude of objects in images with little effort, despite the fact that the image of the ...

human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people ( users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design ...

, dialog and narrative generation, among other technologies.

Definition

At present, there is no widely agreed upon definition for cognitive computing in either

academia An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...

or industry. In general, the term cognitive computing has been used to refer to new hardware and/or software that mimics the functioning of the

human brain The human brain is the central organ (anatomy), organ of the human nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system. The brain consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum. It controls most of the act ...

(2004) and helps to improve human decision-making. In this sense, CC is a new type of computing with the goal of more accurate models of how the human brain/

mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for vario ...

senses, reasons, and responds to stimulus. CC applications link

data analysis Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple facets and approaches, en ...

and adaptive page displays ( AUI) to adjust content for a particular type of audience. As such, CC hardware and applications strive to be more

affective Affect, in psychology, refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion or mood. History The modern conception of affect developed in the 19th century with Wilhelm Wundt. The word comes from the German ''Gefühl'', meaning "feeling." ...

and more influential by design.

The term "cognitive system" also applies to any artificial construct able to perform a cognitive process where a cognitive process is the transformation of data, information, knowledge, or wisdom to a new level in the DIKW Pyramid. While many cognitive systems employ techniques having their origination in

research, cognitive systems, themselves, may not be artificially intelligent. For example, a

neural network A neural network is a network or neural circuit, circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up ...

trained to recognize cancer on an MRI scan may achieve a higher success rate than a human doctor. This system is certainly a cognitive system but is not artificially intelligent. Cognitive systems may be engineered to feed on dynamic data in real-time, or near real-time, and may draw on multiple sources of information, including both structured and unstructured digital information, as well as sensory inputs (visual, gestural, auditory, or sensor-provided).

Cognitive analytics

Cognitive computing-branded technology platforms typically specialize in the processing and analysis of large, unstructured datasets.

Applications

;Education: Even if cognitive computing can not take the place of teachers, it can still be a heavy driving force in the education of students. Cognitive computing being used in the classroom is applied by essentially having an assistant that is personalized for each individual student. This cognitive assistant can relieve the stress that teachers face while teaching students, while also enhancing the student’s learning experience over all. Teachers may not be able to pay each and every student individual attention, this being the place that cognitive computers fill the gap. Some students may need a little more help with a particular subject. For many students, Human interaction between student and teacher can cause

anxiety Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil Turmoil may refer to: * ''Turmoil'' (1984 video game), a 1984 video game released by Bug-Byte * ''Turmoil'' (2016 video game), a 2016 indie oil tycoon video ...

and can be uncomfortable. With the help of Cognitive Computer

tutors Tutoring is private academic support, usually provided by an expert teacher; someone with deep knowledge or defined expertise in a particular subject or set of subjects. A tutor, formally also called an academic tutor, is a person who provides ...

, students will not have to face their uneasiness and can gain the confidence to learn and do well in the classroom. While a student is in class with their personalized assistant, this assistant can develop various techniques, like creating lesson plans, to tailor and aid the student and their needs. ;Healthcare: Numerous tech companies are in the process of developing technology that involves cognitive computing that can be used in the medical field. The ability to classify and identify is one of the main goals of these cognitive devices. This trait can be very helpful in the study of identifying

carcinogens A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substan ...

. This cognitive system that can detect would be able to assist the examiner in interpreting countless numbers of documents in a lesser amount of time than if they did not use Cognitive Computer technology. This technology can also evaluate information about the patient, looking through every medical record in depth, searching for indications that can be the source of their problems. ;Commerce: Together with Artificial Intelligence, it has been used in warehouse management systems to collect, store, organize and analyze all related supplier data. All these aims at improving efficiency, enabling faster decision-making, monitoring inventory and fraud detection ;Human Cognitive Augmentation: In situations where humans are using or working collaboratively with cognitive systems, called a human/cog ensemble, results achieved by the ensemble are superior to results obtainable by the human working alone. Therefore, the human is cognitively augmented.In cases where the human/cog ensemble achieves results at, or superior to, the level of a human expert then the ensemble has achieved synthetic expertise. In a human/cog ensemble, the "cog" is a cognitive system employing virtually any kind of cognitive computing technology. ;Other use cases *

Speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ma ...

Sentiment analysis Sentiment analysis (also known as opinion mining or emotion AI) is the use of natural language processing, text analysis, computational linguistics, and biometrics to systematically identify, extract, quantify, and study affective states and subjec ...

Face detection Face detection is a computer technology being used in a variety of applications that identifies human faces in digital images. Face detection also refers to the psychological process by which humans locate and attend to faces in a visual scene. ...

Risk assessment Broadly speaking, a risk assessment is the combined effort of: # identifying and analyzing potential (future) events that may negatively impact individuals, assets, and/or the environment (i.e. hazard analysis); and # making judgments "on the ...

Fraud detection In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compen ...

* Behavioral recommendations

Industry work

Cognitive computing in conjunction with big data and

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

s that comprehend customer needs, can be a major advantage in economic

decision making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either ra ...

. The powers of cognitive computing and

hold the potential to affect almost every task that humans are capable of performing. This can negatively affect employment for humans, as there would be no such need for human labor anymore. It would also increase the inequality of wealth; the people at the head of the cognitive computing industry would grow significantly richer, while workers without ongoing, reliable employment would become less well off. The more industries start to utilize cognitive computing, the more difficult it will be for humans to compete. Increased use of the technology will also increase the amount of work that AI-driven

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be ...

s and machines can perform. Only extraordinarily talented, capable and motivated humans would be able to keep up with the machines. The influence of competitive individuals in conjunction with AI/CC with has the potential to change the course of humankind.

Definition

Cognitive analytics

Applications

Industry work

See also

References

Further reading