Cognitive Computing is a term which is used to refer to the development of computer systems based on the brains of humans. It can be understood as a science which was developed to train computers to think the way humans do. Earlier in the 1990s, this science was also popularly known as Artificial Intelligence but it later changed both by name and by conceptual meaning. Cognitive computing takes into account both biology and technology in order to re-engineer the brain which in fact too can be considered as a computer system, the most efficient one on earth.

History of Cognitive Computing

The roots of Cognitive Computing can be traced back to the 1950s when intelligent and smart computer systems were first being developed by several computer companies. Artificial Intelligence during this time was not designed to or was capable of making its decisions. It wasn’t yet able to analyze different situations intelligently like the human brain does and couldn’t come up with solutions to problems. Due to this reason, the enthusiasm began to recede, and many scientists and computer developers considered it to be the end of this technology.

Later, due to advances in Cognitive Science and a much deeper understanding of the Human Brain, new and better computer systems were developed and were modeled after the mind. These systems were capable of integrating past experiences as well, and this allowed them to operate at a higher speed.

Cognitive Computing now

Cognitive Computing has now turned into a science which is capable of making context computable. It is more dynamic and can handle problems the way human brain does. The systems in Cognitive Computing can extract different type of context features like the task, the exact location, the time and the history so that it can provide information or data which is suitable for an individual. Today, this science is redefining the association between humans and the digital environment.

Qualities of a Cognitive Computing System

In order to achieve the best levels of computing, the cognitive computing systems must possess certain qualities and features, and some of the most important ones are given as follows:

  • Interactive-Cognitive Systems must be able to interact and communicate with the users so that the needs of these users can be defined clearly. The systems must communicate with not only people but also processors, Cloud services and other devices.
  • Contextual-Cognitive Systems must be able to identify, understand and extract contextual elements like location, time, the meaning, the right domain, the profile of the user, as well as the objective.
  • Adaptive-Cognitive Systems should be able to adapt according to changing situations, changes in information and changes in the requirements, etc. They must be dynamic in nature to meet the evolving changes.
  • Stateful and iterative-Cognitive Systems must be able to define problems, ask queries and find new sources of information is the available ones are not sufficient.

Newer Cognitive systems are different from other computing applications because they do more than just tabulating and computing. They have the ability to reason, infer and apply knowledge.