When it’s time to make a decision, the choice isn’t best left to instinct. It’s clearly better to have some idea, to study and do research, but where’s the line between a tool that helps you do so and a decision engine?

If machines can eventually fly and drive and reason better than us, will that free us up to redefine our role or leave us with none? I think in the very long term, we’ll be the “machines” that replace us, but if I’m wrong, we could exit stage left.

From Keiko Nannichi’s Asahi Shimbun piece about Hitachi’s new “decision software”:

During a recent demonstration, a prototype was asked whether the ban on casinos should be lifted in Japan.

In favor of the ban, the program said more people would become addicted to casino gambling, and that it is likely to spur the incidence of crime.

It cited job creation and impact on stimulating the economy as grounds for lifting the ban.

The program came up with for and against reasons after it scanned as many as 9.7 million English-language news articles in about 60 seconds.

The program first establishes the theme of the question asked and then gathers related articles. It then locates passages describing reasons and grounds for and against the casino industry and compiles and reads texts on both positions.

The program can be applied to many fields as more data become available in various fields, according to Hitachi.

For example, the AI program could perform a similar task in assisting doctors on deciding whether to proceed with surgery if electronic data on patients and relevant research literature are presented.•