Cognitive Computing: How Enterprises Are Benefitting From Cognitive Technology
AI has truly been a far-flung goal ever since the conception of computing, and every day we seem to be getting closer and closer to that goal with new cognitive computing models.
Coming from the amalgamation of cognitive science and based on the basic premise of simulating the human thought process, the concept, as well as applications of cognitive computing, are bound to have far-reaching impacts on not just our private lives, but also industries like healthcare, insurance and more. The advantages of cognitive technology are well and truly a step beyond the conventional AI systems.
According to David Kenny, General Manager, IBM Watson — the most advanced cognitive computing framework, “AI can only be as smart as the people teaching it.” The same is not true for the latest cognitive revolution.
Cognitive computing process uses a blend of artificial intelligence, neural networks, machine learning, natural language processing, sentiment analysis, and contextual awareness to solve day-to-day problems just like humans. IBM defines cognitive computing as an advanced system that learns at scale, reasons with purpose and interacts with humans in a natural form.
While artificial intelligence’s basic use case is to implement the best algorithm to solve a problem, cognitive computing goes a step beyond and tries to mimic human intelligence and wisdom by analyzing a series of factors. When compared with Artificial Intelligence, cognitive computing is an entirely different concept.
Unlike artificial intelligence systems that just take care of a given problem, cognitive computing learns by studying patterns and suggests humans take relevant action based on its understanding. In the case of artificial intelligence, the system takes full control of a process and takes steps to complete a task or avoid a scenario by using a pre-defined algorithm.
While in comparison, cognitive computing is a different field altogether where it serves as an assistant instead of the one completing the task. In this way, cognitive computing gives humans the power of faster and more accurate data analysis without having to worry about the wrong decisions taken by the machine learning system.
As discussed above, cognitive computing’s main aim is to assist humans in decision making. This endows humans with superior grade precision in analysis while ensuring everything is in their control. To illustrate, let’s take the example of artificial intelligence in the healthcare system. An AI-backed system would make all decisions regarding treatment without consultation with a human doctor, while cognitive computing would supplement the human diagnosis with its own set of data and analysis, which improves the quality of decisions and adds a human touch to critical processes.
In the field of process automation, the modern computing system is set to revolutionize the current and legacy systems. According to Gartner, cognitive computing will disrupt the digital sphere unlike any other technology introduced in the last 20 years. By having the ability to analyze and process large amounts of volumetric data, cognitive computing helps in employing a computing system for relevant real-life system. Cognitive computing has a host of benefits, including the following:
Cognitive systems are highly-efficient in collecting, juxtaposing, and cross-referencing information to analyze a situation effectively. If we take the case of the healthcare industry, cognitive systems such as IBM Watson helps physicians collect and analyze data from various sources such as previous medical reports, medical journals, diagnostic tools, and past data from the medical fraternity, thereby assisting physicians in providing a data-backed treatment recommendation that benefits both the patient as well as the doctor. Instead of replacing doctors, cognitive computing employs robotic process automation to speed up data analysis.
