In an historic event in February 2011, IBM's Watson computer competed on Jeopardy! against the TV quiz show's two biggest all-time champions. Watson is a computer running software called Deep QA, developed by IBM Research. While the grand challenge driving the project was to win on Jeopardy!, the broader goal of Watson was to create a new generation of technology that can find answers in unstructured data more effectively than standard search technology.

Join leading researchers Dr. Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research and Dr. Peter Norvig of Google for an intriguing discussion about the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence, moderated by KQED's Tim Olson. We are extremely fortunate to have Eric and Peter on our stage -- they've known each other for several years, and can discuss everything from machine learning to data-driven science, the world of perception, speech recognition, robotics, self-driving cars, and even a computer called Watson. A Wonder Dialog indeed!

Ray Kurzweil is a 21st century polymath. He is a scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, author, visionary and futurist. As a scientist and inventor he has pioneered work in optical character recognition (OCR), speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. As an entrepreneur, Kurzweil has founded businesses in the fields of OCR, music synthesis, speech recognition, reading technology, virtual reality and financial investment. He is the author of numerous books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), the technological singularity and futurism.

"We're going to see games tackling women's rights. We're going to see games around climate change. We're going to see games around medical innovation that doctors are going to play." Jane McGonigal

In 2007 and 2008, Time Magazine named Paul Allen one of the hundred most influential people in the world. His impact has been felt in science, technology, business, medicine, sports, music, and philanthropy. His passion, curiosity, and intellectual rigor, combined with the resources to launch and support new initiatives, have literally changed the world.