What can Microsoft teach us about the JFK story?

“Cognitive search” is Microsoft’s concept and tool; use computing power to capture analyze massive amounts of data found in the latest JFK files.

But the example these engineers give is not exactly inspiring.

We just ran all the content through, and right away you could see that the CIA, the FBI, and even Cuba were involved in all of this.

This statement is certainly true–the CIA, FBI and Cuba all figure in the assassination story. But we don’t need artificial intelligence to reach it. Anybody who read the Warren Commission, Church Committee or HSCA final reports know this fact.

Sociable notes that it was “purely coincidental” Microsoft brought this new service to market at the very same time that the last of the JFK files were in the news. In April President Trump released thousands of JFK files while keeping redactions in at least 15,834 other JFK documents.

The question is whether AI and Machine Learning can bring us to new conclusions about the JFK case. I don’t dismiss the possibility. I just don’t think we yet have the right questions for the cognitive search technology..

So I want to put this to the technologists and programmers out there: Can AI give us new, empirical, verifiable insights about the JFK story? If so, how?

3 thoughts on “What can Microsoft teach us about the JFK story?”

  1. For those that do not see value in this, you must have missed things in this video for some odd reason.
    The software is enabled to read and recognise, names and therefor can group related documents together, but can also see patterns with stamps, scribbles and signatures. What researcher that goes through the trove of documents would not want that type of tech to his assistance. Think about the man hours saved.
    The spider web part shows how these names inter-relate to each other.

    I love it.

  2. Richard Turnbull, J.D.

    Pablo Picasso stated the issue with some hyperbole: “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
    I believe Mr. Morley has formulated several of the most relevant questions based on his own investigative reporting, and “connecting the dots.”

  3. It seems a bit conspicuous that the Secret Service, literally the Praetorian Guard, doesn’t make “the list” of coup participants. The rearranging of the motorcade order, the route selection, and the stripping of protection in openly hostile territory (Dallas), beggars the question of AI’s ability to empirically assess available files and produce new and verifiable insights. Perhaps when the sum total of known active attempts on JFK (Chicago, Tampa, Miami, Dallas) is computed, along with key CIA (and business assets), Mob, and anti-Castro Cuban suspects (with ALL files released), more specific and concrete insights may emerge.

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