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IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

forbes.com

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Re: IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

#41

Post by booruguru »

rtkwe wrote: post #31
booruguru wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This product is essentially a search engine. Doctors refer to medical texts all of time, this IBM tool is simply making it easier (and faster) to access the right information using plain English queries. It's not like we're going to replace doctors with computer kiosks...well, at least not until they work out some of the bugs.

It's more than a search engine it aggregates the information from say 10 different studies or cases about a disease into a set of information which it then compares against the current case the doctor is looking at. At that point it posits some diagnoses or some treatments. Calling it a search engine is pretty dismissive.

I'm wasn't being dismissive. I'm not suggesting what IBM has accomplished is trivial... what I'm saying is, doctors can't use Watson to do their job; it's just another diagnostic resource... As opposed to being a harbinger of the coming robopocalyse (as some people seem to be suggesting)

Re: IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

#42

Post by brianpan »

mkr-hn wrote: post #39
rtkwe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than a search engine it aggregates the information from say 10 different studies or cases about a disease into a set of information which it then compares against the current case the doctor is looking at. At that point it posits some diagnoses or some treatments. Calling it a search engine is pretty dismissive.

Have you used Google recently?

Our doctors certainly already do.

Re: IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

#43

Post by mchusma »

gridaphobe wrote: post #21
abcd_f wrote: post #18

On one hand it's impressive and huge and through that is somewhat intimidating and scary, because it makes one feel like losing control (to the "machines"). On the other hand it's a straight-forward extension of a basic calculator. There are tasks that humans can do, but not as fast, so why not automate them? It doesn't mean that no one can subtract and divide by hand, it just makes one's work more efficient. Similar…

I don't think the concern is that the next generation of doctors will be incompetent, but perhaps they won't be as quick as their elders. There are times where you can't wait 30 seconds for Watson to suggest a course of action.

Im sure there are many concerns, but I don't think the time is fast enough to be a non issue. How many decisions cant wait 30 seconds? Besides, moores law indicates that this can probably be reduced to 5 seconds in 10 years (being very conservative and assuming the scope of Watson increases dramatically). Actually, by caching common results my guess is most things could be nearly instant within a year.

Re: IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

#44

Post by ScottBurson »

Watson doesn’t tell a doctor what to do, it provides several options with degrees of confidence for each, along with the supporting evidence it used to arrive at the optimal treatment.

That is, of course, as it should be (except for the comma splice, heh), but I think there's a grave danger of doctors becoming complacent about it over time and just doing what Watson recommends.

I think we need to make sure that "I did what the computer said" is not a defense against malpractice, and similarly that not doing what the computer said does not make one's defense more difficult. That will be a hard position to maintain, but the alternative is that eventually, doctors will cede their critical faculties to the machine.

Re: IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

#45

Post by busyant »

Does anyone know what the specific metric is that they are using to compare Wat son to doctors? What does it mean that doctors make the correct treatment decision 50% of the time? I don't doubt that Watson is better at this task, but it's difficult to have an appreciation of its ability without understanding the test.

Re: IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

#46

Post by entropy_ »

I think this goes to show, that even what we may now look upon as dinosaurs no longer capable of innovation can do great things if they put in the R&D and don't scuttle their own efforts with shitty corporate politics.

I really, really, respect IBM for being able to do this despite its size and age as a company. They somehow have figured out how to keep(or start again) innovating when most companies that grow to that size tend to become complacent or just play catch-up with more innovative companies.

Re: IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

#47

Post by sovande »

giardini wrote: post #19
booruguru wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preach on. I'm baffled by how techies can be so underwhelmed by what IBM is doing.

Such software has been available for decades, been shown to be superior to human diagnosis, and yet has not been accepted by the medical community. Doctors will likely continue to push back. It may require restructuring of the medical education community (perhaps a' la the movie Idiocracy) to bring about utilization. "50 years of successful predictive modeling should be enough: Lessons for philosophy of science (2002…

True, so called expert systems are nothing new, but the much improved ability to parse natural language and semantics is newish. It means the human-machine interface is easier to use and combined with portable access via tablets this might very well be the tipping point. Similar to how the iPad was adopted compared to decades of tablets before that never saw a wide-spread adoption, mainly because of the poor human-machine interface.

Re: IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

#48

Post by lucidrains »

i am in awe with the demonstration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZsPc0h_mtM. i think anyone who has done any sort of clinical reasoning in the hospital would be at least a little impressed. the scary part is that such technologies can only improve, while even the most seasoned physician eventually have to face mental decline.

Re: IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

#49

Post by lucidrains »

gridaphobe wrote: post #21
abcd_f wrote: post #18

On one hand it's impressive and huge and through that is somewhat intimidating and scary, because it makes one feel like losing control (to the "machines"). On the other hand it's a straight-forward extension of a basic calculator. There are tasks that humans can do, but not as fast, so why not automate them? It doesn't mean that no one can subtract and divide by hand, it just makes one's work more efficient. Similar…

I don't think the concern is that the next generation of doctors will be incompetent, but perhaps they won't be as quick as their elders. There are times where you can't wait 30 seconds for Watson to suggest a course of action.

http://iaftp.org/2012/03/is-technology-eroding-pilot-skills/

Re: IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

#50

Post by mdda »

Evbn wrote: post #22
nolok wrote: post #15

This is truly impressive. The only part that I'm unsure about it is when they say they "WellPoint will be using the system [to help] health insurers determine which treatments are fair, appropriate and efficient and, in turn, what it will cover", the possibility for abuse their is significant. Anyway, congrats to anyone at IBM who worked on this, when you make the future so great it feels natural, you're doing it rig…

But is the potential worse than existing systems?

Suppose a doctor is paid by the visit - his incentive is to keep you alive for as long as the insurance will allow him to (which could have minus points as well as plus points). Watson's recommendations could be aligned more directly to the insurance company's bottom line : Keep you healthy as long as possible, but kill you quickly when things turn south.

Of course, it may be that Watson's choices are more optimal for the patient, but there's an ethical debate in there somewhere, I'm sure.

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