At the TED2016 conference, the XPRIZE founder, president and CEO Peter Diamandis and the head of IBM Watson David Kenny announced a new initiative called IBM Watson AI XPRIZE. There’s a $5 million prize money for those who will be able to give a speech at the TED2020 conference after the participating teams will challenge each other at the IBM’s annual conference called World of Watson. The peculiarity is that the speeches won’t be held by humans but by artificial intelligences.
Peter Diamandis stated that he’s tired of dystopian stories about artificial intelligences. What better way to change people’s perception than launching a new initiative of the XPRIZE foundation? It’s a non-profit organization that runs competitions that aim to encourage technological developments in favor of humanity, therefore the idea is that the results of the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE can be useful to everybody as well.
What better partner could XPRIZE find than IBM, the company that has been heavily investing in the Watson cognitive computing system? According to IBM, a competition like IBM Watson AI XPRIZE can accelerate progress that bring positive impacts in the lives of the people but also changes in industries and professions. In this perspective, the Watson system is seen as a new kind of collaboration between humans and technology to address the most important challenges of today’s world.
Yesterday’s announcement is just the first step. You can already pre-register for the competition but the rules have yet to be communicated. XPRIZE’s Stephanie Wander will lead the design of this competition and stated that her team has already an internal definition of artificial intelligence but it must be clarified for the participants.
The precise terms of the competition will be announced only by May 2016. As is customary in XPRIZE initiatives, it’s a long-term work that in this case will require technological developments. The three finalists will compete at the TED2020 conference and the winner will be selected by a combination of judges and audience.
