I’ve put up a new blog posting on Psychology Today. “On February 16, 2011, an IBM computer named ‘Watson’ crushed its two human competitors in the final night of a three-day Jeopardy battle. Its final score was $77,147 to the humans’ $24,000 and $21,600. It might seem that Watson is another incremental step toward computers attaining humanlike intelligence. Just keep making them faster and more complicated, and sooner or later they’ll become self-aware. But in fact  artificial intelligence doesn’t gain much just by scaling up. What Watson needs is an ecosystem, not more RAM.” Read more.

When the New York Times put its review up on its website, I was so nervous I printed it out and had my wife read it to me line by line.  But it’s a great review! “Michael Chorost is not only a clear and concise science writer, but also a visionary.” Read the whole thing.

And then, if you’d like to read an excerpt from the book, the Times has posted it here.