[Lu Stout:] Now earlier this week, in a battle of man versus machine, Google's Alpha Go software scored a decisive victory in its human know-how. Now, this is a huge leap for artificial intelligence. Now, IBM was one of the first to bring the power of AI to public attention with Deep Blue, the computer that beat the chess grand master Gary Kasporov in 1997. And its super computer Watson bested Jeopardy champions at the game in 2011. Now, the company has since been researching and further developing Watson and technology that can think. And IBM's vice president of cognitive computing, Guruduth Banavar, joins me now live from New York with more. Guruduth thank you for joining us here on News Stream. We have seen major progress in AI programs, mastering board games, winning game shows. And we have to ask, how close are we to having AI that has human-like cognitive abilities?
[Guruduth Banavar, Vp Of Cognitive Computing, Ibm Research:] Thank you, Kristie, for having me on the show. First of all, I would like to say that cognitive it is an idea of partnering between people and machines to do things that neither one can do by themselves. So, at the end of the day, cognitive computer is trying to leverage the strengths of humans and combining that with the strengths of machines to solve the world's big problems. So, it is not a question of how close computers are to humans. I think it is a question of how we combine the powers of computers with the powers of humans to solve the big problems like health care, education, environmental problems and so forth.
[Lu Stout:] So it's about collaboration and working together. Now, earlier this week, of course you and the world we all witnessed that moment when an AI defeated a master go champion. And yes, you saw comparisons to Skynet, comparisons to Terminator. They were made. And we can joke about it. But a number of people out there are still very afraid of artificial intelligence. Should we be afraid?
[Banavar:] Well, I'm not afraid of artificial intelligence. And the reason is because these are technologies that are really powerful in terms of helping us solve the big problems. Like I said before, if you look at health care, the amount of data we have in the world is tremendous. And if we look at environmental problems, we have a lot of data. But we don't have the insight to solve those problems today. When we apply these technologies, we actually understand what's underneath that data. And we can come up with the right solutions. You can look at education. You can look at other fields like industries of all kinds. We think we can actually use this toolkit that is being developed by AI to solve these big problems.
[Lu Stout:] So these toolkits developed by AI can be used to solve problems in education and health care. Give us the update on Watson. IBMs AI, what is it up to now? Since Watson won on Jeopardy, how have you expanded its capabilities?
[Banavar:] So, since winning Jeopardy, Watson has acquired a lot of skills. It can now see images. It can now do analytics on different kinds of data. It can also do speech and text translation of different kinds. And so when you take all of these pieces of technology and you can combine it in ways that can address problems, we've seen that it can make a revolution in different industries. So for example, in health care, we have seen it being applied to cancer treatment, coming up with personalized treatments for patients who are going through many different kinds of chronic conditions and very different lifestyles. We have also seen it being applied in creating personalized education regimes for students. We have seen it applied to providing public services and information for citizens. We have seen it being applied for understanding the environment, understanding patterns of industry and other kinds of traffic and use of many resources in a city environment to address smog and other issues like that in a project we call green horizon in Beijing, which has also now being expanded in other parts of the world. So overall, Watson has become a set of solutions that are focused on very practical problems in the world that it can use its capability for understanding huge amounts of data and then partnering with people to make the right decisions and provide the right insight.
[Lu Stout:] Yeah. I found it interesting when you talk about AI you say there is nothing to be afraid of AI, AI is a partner. And this is a collaborative relationship. And my final question to you is this, what can AI learn from us? What can we learn from AI?
[Banavar:] Well, AI has always been something that people at the end of the day have trained and built. So even today when we have algorithms that we call machine learning, or deep learning, or deep reinforcement learning, there is a pretty big role for people to train these computers to learn the knowledge about the world, and more importantly, to come up with the right problems to solve. So people are the ones that actually ask the right questions. People are the ones that have to ultimately take the insights provided by these systems and apply it with the right kind of value judgment and the right kind of common sense. And on the other hand, also there's a lot of things that AI systems can do that people cannot do. For example, doing large scale data pattern recognition, doing large scale mathematics. These are the kinds of skills that people can leverage from AI systems. And when you combine the two, as I said before, you can actually solve problems that neither one can solve by themselves.
[Lu Stout:] Yeah, man and machine, the ultimate partnership. Guruduth Banavar of IBM Research, we'll leave it at that. Thank you so much for joining us on the program. Take care.
[Banavar:] Thank you very much.
[Lu Stout:] Now, Seaworld, you probably heard the story already, a sea change at Seaworld. It is ending part of its controversial killer whale program. The company says that it will no longer breed orcas and the killer whales currently in its care will be the last at its three U.S. parks. Now, as CNN's Martin Savidge reports, Seaworld has faced blistering criticism since the 2013 CNN documentary "Blackfish."
[Martin Savidge, Cnn Correspondent:] The announcement is as big as the creatures its about. SeaWorld says it's retiring its star performer killer whales after decades of shows and years of controversy over orcas in captivity. The company revealing the surprise in a video tweet.
[Unidentified Female:] The company who helped the world fall in love with orcas will end all orca breeding and transition away from theatrical orca shows.
[Savidge:] Speaking this morning on CBS, the company's CEO said public attitudes have changed.
[Joel Manby, Ceo, Seaworld:] It is about where society is shifting. I have seen clearly that society is changing their attitude about these unbelievable majestic animals being in human care.
[Savidge:] For years, animal welfare groups have blasted SeaWorld for their killer whale program saying the mammals were too large, too smart and too social a creature to be kept in theme parks.
[Dispatcher:] Wayne County Sheriff's Office.
[Unidentified Male:] We need SO to respond for a dead person at SealWorld. A whale has eaten one of the trainers.
[Savidge:] But it was the CNN documentary film "Blackfish" focusing on the death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau and questions regarding how captivity might have turned Tilikum, one of SeaWorld's biggest attractions, into a real killer that was a turning point.
[Unidentified Male:] There will be no more admission tickets. No more rides.
[Unidentified Female:] No more teddy bears.
[Savidge:] SeaWorld never recovered for the public backlash, attendance declined, so did its stock price. Now, SeaWorld says it will focus more on its animal rescue and rehabilitation efforts, even partnering with one of its fiercest opponents, the Humane Society.
[Unidentified Male:] We have been talking the last three months very quietly.
[Savidge:] Marine biologist Naomi Rose has worked more than 20 years for this day.
[Naomi Rose, Marine Biologist:] This is stunning news.
[Savidge:] She's thrilled, but says killer whales can survive for decades and wonders where and how the remaining 28 orcas at SeaWorld will live.
[Rose:] They need to get out of those tanks. I don't think the tanks are good for them. And so I would like to continue a dialogue that explores options such as seaside sanctuaries, coastal sanctuaries for these animals, where they will be in a more space, and a more natural habitat.
[Savidge:] SeaWorld hasn't said specifically how it's going to care long-term for its orcas. Right now, it's just content with taking a big step toward hopefully solving an even bigger controversy. Martin Savdige, CNN, Atlanta.
[Lu Stout:] You're watching News Stream. And still to come, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg bypasses China's online censorship and provokes a debate on air pollution by jogging in Beijing.