The IBM Watson is the first cognitive computer. It's the beginning of a new era.
Computers now can read natural language and no just 0's and 1's.
They can learn without someone to translate (to machine language) to them.
The exascale (1 quintillion os calculations per second) will be reached before 2020. Now (until june 2013) the processing capacity is 33/50 peta (quadrillion), the exascale is 1000 peta. It's a long way since the 1 calculation per second with the (never built) Babbage computer in the 1830's.
And them the computers will have the same capacity of human brain processing.
For the first time in history, the humans will no more be the only intelligent entities in the earth.
Truly, we no more will be the smartest guys around.
We hope all human problems will be solved with the help of such intelligence.
There's no impossible problems, there's only lack of intelligence to solve problems.
What we consider impossible problems (aging and death included), to a higher intelligence it's just obvious solutions.
More than ever the humankind is beyond obsolete. We are living times the humans are bridges and not and end.
The only solution is to merge with technology. How we'll do this? No surgeries or painful interventions but with nanobots, foglets to be more specific.
