Let the Games Begin
09/05/12 18:33 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Submitted by S. Pelech - Kinexus on Wed, 05/09/2012 - 18:33.
In some limited instances the recruitment of gamers to tackle certain scientific problems may be compelling, but for most problems in molecular biology and other life sciences this is really impractical. Unless savants are engaged in these problems, the data are just too complex for meaningful explorations within video games on i-Pads. While a growing number of people with Internet access in their hands do appear to have a lot of free time on their hands, encouraging them to pursue these problems will ultimately waste a huge amount of human resources.
The development of synthetic or artificial intelligent systems like IBM's Watson will beat out a whole army of gamers in solving most problems due to their capacity to access and process vast data sets and run millions of simulations quickly and efficiently. It is going to be hard enough to appreciate what the synthetic intelligent systems will soon discover with our individual limited capacity for knowledge.
The development of video games as suggested could encourage a few more people to consider careers as scientists, but for the vast majority of gamers it will have negligible impact. However, from most of the popular video games available today, we will have a wonderful pool of talented future soldiers that will be fit (even if they are health compromised from poor diet and physical inactivity) and ready for deployment as cyberspies and remote control operators of drones in future battles for freedom on the planet.
Link to the original blog post.
In some limited instances the recruitment of gamers to tackle certain scientific problems may be compelling, but for most problems in molecular biology and other life sciences this is really impractical. Unless savants are engaged in these problems, the data are just too complex for meaningful explorations within video games on i-Pads. While a growing number of people with Internet access in their hands do appear to have a lot of free time on their hands, encouraging them to pursue these problems will ultimately waste a huge amount of human resources.
The development of synthetic or artificial intelligent systems like IBM's Watson will beat out a whole army of gamers in solving most problems due to their capacity to access and process vast data sets and run millions of simulations quickly and efficiently. It is going to be hard enough to appreciate what the synthetic intelligent systems will soon discover with our individual limited capacity for knowledge.
The development of video games as suggested could encourage a few more people to consider careers as scientists, but for the vast majority of gamers it will have negligible impact. However, from most of the popular video games available today, we will have a wonderful pool of talented future soldiers that will be fit (even if they are health compromised from poor diet and physical inactivity) and ready for deployment as cyberspies and remote control operators of drones in future battles for freedom on the planet.
Link to the original blog post.