Michael van Lent, CEO with the company SoarTech, discusses advances and limitations in Artificial Intelligence, or AI. Van Lent talks about systems such as IBM’s Deep Blue and technology developed by Google that uses photo images to identify and classify the species. He further discussed technologies that his company has or is developing: a virtual role-playing system training soldiers in cultural awareness; a system that matches veterans with job recommendations; and, defensive driving technology for automated vehicles. Among the current benefits of AI are capacity for rational decision making and the freeing of work time from mundane tasks. But the present technology is both capable and incapable. AI can only do what its instructions tell it. The ability to infer and account for context is yet to occur.
