IBM and XPrize announce $5 Million Competition to Tackle Global Problems

In an attempt to solve some humanity’s thorniest problems, IBM and XPrize launched the IBM Watson A.I. XPrize on Wednesday. It’s a $5 million challenge that asks participants to use IBM’s artificial intelligence platform to apply AI in the best possible way.

The initiative, dubbed ‘IBM Watson A.I. XPRIZE: A Cognitive Computing Competition’, encourages challengers to think and solve global problems, such as climate change, education and medicine, with the help of AI. The challenge was announced at TED2016 conference in Vancouver.

The challenge, which is going to kickoff next year, will ask participants to go head-to-head at IBM’s annual World of Watson conference. The teams will show their projects to win interim prizes and enter the next year’s competition.

XPrize founder Peter Diamandis said the challenge is an opportunity to see problems in a new way. AI may provide a way to tackle some of the major global problems, according to Diamandis.

With the new initiative, IBM and XPrize have presented AI as a noble way to tackle problems. Before this, many renowned personalities around the globe described artificial intelligence as a technology that could go out of control and cause trouble for human race in future.

Renowned English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called AI a threat to humanity. They said that use of AI in future could lead to catastrophic results for humanity.

But, there are many people who do not consider AI as a future threat. A poll by Monmouth University in April 2015 showed that more than 70% respondents think the intelligence exhibited by machines or software could be bad economic news, while 16% said they are worried about affects of AI on humans.

The AI field is already among the busiest sectors of computer science. And, more companies around the world are showing interest in the arena which proves the AI will see a lot of action in future as well.