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Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

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Re: Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

#161

Post by Nition »

pinewurst wrote: post #47
numbsafari wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And behind the scenes it was probably the equivalent of flipping a coin between red and white.

It was totally rule-based. More complex systems had a little more probabilistic stuff via Bayes and "certainty factors", but not this one. I worked on another one for this company called Vibration Advisor which diagnosed odd noises in GM cars.

It's funny how much complex "AI" really comes down to If and Switch statements. "Utility AI" is popular for videogame AI right now - it's weighted switches.

Re: Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

#162

Post by airstrike »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #159
cs702 wrote: post #33

The problem at IBM is not technological; it's managerial . For a long while now, IBM has been treating "AI" as a product that can be managed, packaged, and sold by "general" business managers -- think MBA-types with only a superficial, qualitative grasp of deep learning and AI. Doing that with rapidly evolving technology is a sure-fire recipe for failure . Most such MBA-types today are ill-equipped to manage, package…

As of 2018, after seeing how terrible “engineer-types” can be at engineering management, the MBAs are starting to look better to me.

As an MBA who browses HN, I'm torn between the two opinions

Re: Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

#163

Post by flukus »

coderdude wrote: post #101
ryanmcbride wrote: post #94

I've never interacted directly with IBM, but I remember about 2 years ago, they had a talk at the Akamai Edge conference about how they dealt with bloated cookies. The company I work for has the same problem so I sat in to see what their solution was. The problem they were having is that all the various IBM lines of business added so much garbage onto the client's cookie, that eventually their pages would stop loadin…

Those two departments couldn't possibly be related. It seems unfair to base judgement on the entire company for that.

If they don't want the company suffering reputation damage by failings in other parts of the company then they should split or at least run under different brands.

If they want to accept the positives of the IBM brand then they need to accept all the negatives that come with it. Unfortunately for them that brand is now toxic.

Re: Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

#164

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

rossdavidh wrote: post #140
detaro wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

given this line > Once IBM has been in this technology game for a little while, I'm sure they'll get the hang of it. I'd assume the parent is being sarcastic

...and perhaps a little too subtle. Or maybe just not funny enough to be apparent.

Nah, it was funny, just a little too subtle for me at the time.

Re: Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

#165

Post by manigandham »

ryandrake wrote: post #151
paganel wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yes, their json interface was the DOM, serialized as json. This is pure thedailywtf material.

Did the change request come complete with specific requirements on what the interface should include? Because it sounds like they produced exactly what was asked for: a JSON interface. If the requirements were poorly specified, you can’t lay all the blame on them.

Yes you can. There's a basic level of competence in dealing with context around a request. Any decent developer or PM would know what a JSON API is supposed to be.

Re: Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

#166

Post by Iwan-Zotow »

dmix wrote: post #26

Anyone know what "RA" stand for? The employees kept mentioning it on the "Watching IBM" blog. I couldn't find a decent match via Google. For ex: > IBM Watson Health has initiated a significant RA across multiple offices.

Resource Attrition

Re: Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

#167

Post by [deleted] »

coderdude wrote: post #101
ryanmcbride wrote: post #94

I've never interacted directly with IBM, but I remember about 2 years ago, they had a talk at the Akamai Edge conference about how they dealt with bloated cookies. The company I work for has the same problem so I sat in to see what their solution was. The problem they were having is that all the various IBM lines of business added so much garbage onto the client's cookie, that eventually their pages would stop loadin…

Those two departments couldn't possibly be related. It seems unfair to base judgement on the entire company for that.

[deleted]

Re: Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

#168

Post by mr_toad »

stefan_ wrote: post #14
glup wrote: post #3

"Offering managers didn’t have technical backgrounds and sometimes came up with ideas for new products that were simply impossible." Sounds like they drank their own kool-aid, e.g., "Products That Enhance and Amplify Human Expertise," rather than understand the actual limitations and possibilities of ML. And it seems to me that they're still doing it with this nonsense about a human-level "AI" debating stack. The ove…

It's double whammy for the Watson stuff, because not only did IBM lose track with AI, they also had that whole cloud thing whoosh by them. So not only do you have marketing telling outrageous lies about the abilities of their AI systems, they're also exaggerating the cloud angle where Watson is a cornerstone.

IBM actually has a cloud, but they make it so difficult to buy that it’s not really worth it.

Re: Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

#169

Post by bnchrch »

philjohn wrote: post #119
delinka wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno ... seems to me an indication of a larger systemic problem: "we couldn't even provide a company-wide engineering solution for this simple problem, so here's how we used a hack..."

That's the problem you get with silo'd teams. If they had a core technology team they could handle things like this more gracefully. Or maybe not, this is IBM after all.

This is probably just me but I've yet to see a company pull off a core technology team gracefully.

Re: Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI

#170

Post by amptorn »

aresant wrote: post #21

A little case history - there were two illuminating threads ~10 months back where several current & former IBM employees commented on the growing disconnect between the reality vs. marketing of Watson - looks like vindicated by today's news: (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14979642 (2) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14766793

I've been saying Watson is a red herring for years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11262397
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