When computers need human help [The International Herald Tribune]
Computers still do some things very poorly, writes Jason Potin in the International Herald Tribune.
“Even when they pool their memory and processors in powerful networks, they remain unevenly intelligent. Things that humans do with little conscious thought, like recognizing patterns or meanings in images, language or concepts, only baffle the machines.
These lacunae in computers’ abilities would be of interest only to computer scientists, except that many individuals and companies are finding it harder to locate and organize the swelling mass of information that our digital civilization creates.
The problem has prompted a spooky, but elegant, business idea: Why not use the Web to create marketplaces of willing human beings who will perform the tasks that computers cannot?”
The most brilliant use of MTurk I’ve seen is http://www.thesheepmarket.com/ and the paper Aaron Koblin wrote about the project. I wish I had that kind of students…
[…] Il International Herald Tribune critica la mancanza di indipendenza dei computer che per quanto potenti, non sono comunque intelligenti e necessitano dell’aiuto dell’uomo. Queste limitazioni si riperquotono sulla necessità di gestire la vasta mole di informazione. La soluzione proposta è quella di usufruire dl web per condividere le abilità di cui i computer risultano mancanti. […]