(By Info-Tech Analyst Gareth Doherty - Printed with permission from Processor magazine www.processor.com).
Gut instincts have fallen on hard times. Evidence of systematic errors in human decision making and the success of analytical technologies have led to a call for managers to abandon business intuitions. But are gut instincts really as bad as the recent press suggests? Not quite.
In the 1950s, the famous cryptologist and father of modern computer science, Alan Turing, was the first to propose the idea that digital computers might one day share our own intellectual capabilities. In spite of the fact that there is still no system that can pass the test that bears his name, computers have made considerable advances in what were exclusively human domains. The 1997 defeat of chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov by IBM's Deep Blue represents one of the most significant public demonstrations.