12 Artificial Intelligence and Psychological Intelligence

IBM had a landmark year in 2011. On an episode of the popular quiz show Jeopardy! broadcast on February 16, Watson, the company's prized supercomputer, beat Ken Jennings, arguably the best human contestant, and won a $1 million prize. It was a feat that scientists and engineers at IBM had dreamed of for years, and a golden marketing opportunity for the company. Riding on the fresh publicity, IBM announced the very next day: "Already, we are exploring ways to apply Watson skills to the rich, varied language of health care, finance, law and academia." Executives at IBM were confident that the cutting-edge algorithms (mainly in natural language processing) and immense computing power behind Watson would be the engine driving the company's growth in the next decades, similar to what mainframe computers did in the previous decades. Their ambition, however, ended with a big letdown. Watson struggled to generate revenue, and the stock price of IBM in 2021 was down 10 percent from ten years before after Watson's triumph. What went wrong?