quote: "Modha imagines a cognitive computer that could analyze a flood of constantly updated data from trading floors, banking institutions and even real estate markets around the world — sorting through the noise to dentify key trends and their consequences."
... and we'll have at the end a pseudo-human opinion that also will totally fail to see the housing bubble. It will also have opinions about the existence of God, Ginger vs. Marianne, and cry because its haircut turned out poorly.
"A cognitive computer might also help soldiers analyze and react to chaotic events on a battlefield."
seems to be there for the benefit of people controlling the purse strings of the grant money. DARPA (or IARPA now) and potential backers from the financial world (although, do finance folks actually finance this kind of research?).
It may actually work at predicting financial trends, for a while. Then some trading floor will utilize that information to trade, and then their competitors will, then these machines will totally fail to see some other consequence of the complex trades they are making with each other.
... and we'll have at the end a pseudo-human opinion that also will totally fail to see the housing bubble. It will also have opinions about the existence of God, Ginger vs. Marianne, and cry because its haircut turned out poorly.