IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care

#1

Post by SiempreViernes » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:40 AM UTC

IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care
spectrum.ieee.org

Re: IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care

#2

Post by bitcharmer » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

Don't want to sound too mean but this is not the first time IBM overpromised and underdelivered.

Anyone surprised by this?

Re: IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care

#3

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

Anything labelled 'Watson' should be seen as marketing, not product or consulting.

Re: IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care

#4

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

bitcharmer wrote: post #2

Don't want to sound too mean but this is not the first time IBM overpromised and underdelivered. Anyone surprised by this?

Tech marketing tends to flaut the Scotty Principle to the extreme.

Re: IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care

#5

Post by imglorp » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

Not sure about Watson, but there was just this week a story about using pattern matching to improve breast cancer screening imaging. It seems the tech is decent but the problem is, it's unclear whom to sue if needed, so there's an obstacle to using it.

Re: IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care

#6

Post by mark_l_watson » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Anything labelled 'Watson' should be seen as marketing, not product or consulting.

I was going to agree with you, but then my last name is Watson :-)

Seriously, I used IBM Watson on a consulting project a little over two years ago and I was disappointed. To be fair I should take another look. IBM has bought some good companies whose work is exposed in BlueBiz and other web services and the permanent free tier levels they give away rival the free tier levels from GCP.

I think AutoML and auto data science web hosted offerings will be a huge market with right now Google, Amazon, and Microsoft leading the way. If I worked at IBM in a position of power, I would work hard to create a great developer experience for simplifying the use of machine learning, NLP, etc.

Re: IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care

#7

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 5:14 PM UTC

mark_l_watson wrote: post #6

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Anything labelled 'Watson' should be seen as marketing, not product or consulting.

I was going to agree with you, but then my last name is Watson :-) Seriously, I used IBM Watson on a consulting project a little over two years ago and I was disappointed. To be fair I should take another look. IBM has bought some good companies whose work is exposed in BlueBiz and other web services and the permanent free tier levels they give away rival the free tier levels from GCP. I think AutoML and auto data sc…

IBM bit off more than they could chew with the AI/NLP project and their brand suffered as a consequence. Some problems are simply hard in the general case, though there are some spin-outs and spin-offs of that project for more limited domains that are successful.

Re: IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care

#8

Post by himaraya » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

> IBM

> Overpromised and Underdelivered

Sounds kind of catchy, to be honest.

Re: IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care

#9

Post by PaulHoule » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

bitcharmer wrote: post #2

Don't want to sound too mean but this is not the first time IBM overpromised and underdelivered. Anyone surprised by this?

To be fair, IBM has succeeded at big jobs too.

For instance, they developed software for the Apollo mission and the Space Shuttle. The IBM/360. The IBM PC. AS/400.

Re: IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care

#10

Post by oldgradstudent » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #9

bitcharmer wrote: post #2

Don't want to sound too mean but this is not the first time IBM overpromised and underdelivered. Anyone surprised by this?

To be fair, IBM has succeeded at big jobs too. For instance, they developed software for the Apollo mission and the Space Shuttle. The IBM/360. The IBM PC. AS/400.

I don't think there's anyone who disagrees that IBM was a great company once.

Do you have a more recent example? something that happened several years after Louis Gerstner first assumed leadership.