Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

IBM Watson Health slashes workforce

massdevice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 79 posts

Re: IBM Watson Health slashes workforce

#11

Post by waisbrot »

oliviergg wrote: post #4
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems Watson was founded on the false premise that lots of hand coded things could be called an “AI”. It’s the victim of its own winter, because it was never going to live up to its own hype.

Interesting. Do you have some references about this 'hand coded things' ?

"Hand-coded" may be an exaggeration, depending on your field.

ML systems need good training data (where "good" might mean "extremely voluminous") and careful tweaking of parameters. I think an ML expert would call a system where a substantial amount of time is spent here "hand-coded".

Re: IBM Watson Health slashes workforce

#12

Post by downrightmike »

oliviergg wrote: post #2

Very sad for long time IBMers. But Is it the beginning of the much controversial AI Winter revival ?

Watson could never really deliver on the AI healthcare integration and diagnostic support. Basically it became a status symbol for hospitals to have, but it was dead weight. https://www.statnews.com/2017/09/05/watson-ibm-cancer/

Re: IBM Watson Health slashes workforce

#13

Post by krona »

oliviergg wrote: post #2

Very sad for long time IBMers. But Is it the beginning of the much controversial AI Winter revival ?

This isn't really anything to do with machine learning, and just IBM's inability to bring innovation to market (particularly in industry solutions.)

What would you expect from a company run like a hedge fund by a bunch of marketing hacks? Half the original Watson research fellows and executives have left to start their own companies, having seen the writing on the wall years ago.

Re: IBM Watson Health slashes workforce

#14

Post by bitwize »

phren0logy wrote: post #10

I'm an MD, and I dabble in programming and AI/DL. While I don't really care much about Watson in particular, the pervasiveness of the "enter healthcare = death" equation is worrisome to me. And it should worry you, too. There's a lot of potential for good applications of this type of tech in healthcare, but the barriers to actually getting it off the ground strangle it in the crib.

I think this has more to do with the fact that Watson sucks than anything else, although it may be a harbinger for other efforts to sprinkle magic machine-learning pixie dust on complex problems in the hope for a solution.

Re: IBM Watson Health slashes workforce

#15

Post by phren0logy »

bitwize wrote: post #14
phren0logy wrote: post #10

I'm an MD, and I dabble in programming and AI/DL. While I don't really care much about Watson in particular, the pervasiveness of the "enter healthcare = death" equation is worrisome to me. And it should worry you, too. There's a lot of potential for good applications of this type of tech in healthcare, but the barriers to actually getting it off the ground strangle it in the crib.

I think this has more to do with the fact that Watson sucks than anything else, although it may be a harbinger for other efforts to sprinkle magic machine-learning pixie dust on complex problems in the hope for a solution.

In this case, you are probably right. But it seems to happen over and over again suggesting that the barriers to innovation are higher than they should be.

Re: IBM Watson Health slashes workforce

#16

Post by throwawayok »

dmreedy wrote: post #8
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems Watson was founded on the false premise that lots of hand coded things could be called an “AI”. It’s the victim of its own winter, because it was never going to live up to its own hype.

Do you imagine that other, more successful "AI" services from large companies do not involve a lot of hand-coded things?

Yes. Well, at the very least, they don't involve only hand-coded things.

Re: IBM Watson Health slashes workforce

#17

Post by thebluehawk »

dmreedy wrote: post #8
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems Watson was founded on the false premise that lots of hand coded things could be called an “AI”. It’s the victim of its own winter, because it was never going to live up to its own hype.

Do you imagine that other, more successful "AI" services from large companies do not involve a lot of hand-coded things?

The ones that aren't hand-coded tend to act poorly, or racist, or worst.

Re: IBM Watson Health slashes workforce

#18

Post by ISL »

phren0logy wrote: post #10

I'm an MD, and I dabble in programming and AI/DL. While I don't really care much about Watson in particular, the pervasiveness of the "enter healthcare = death" equation is worrisome to me. And it should worry you, too. There's a lot of potential for good applications of this type of tech in healthcare, but the barriers to actually getting it off the ground strangle it in the crib.

Many of those barriers have historical reasons for existing -- which do you think could be lowered without risking patient health (or yielding sufficient benefit to be worth some added risk)?

Re: IBM Watson Health slashes workforce

#19

Post by jgalt212 »

raverbashing wrote: post #6
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems Watson was founded on the false premise that lots of hand coded things could be called an “AI”. It’s the victim of its own winter, because it was never going to live up to its own hype.

I couldn't have put it better myself. Participating in Jeopardy was quite an achievement, but to extrapolate that system and selling it as a "solve all" is to over promise.

To be fair, it did more than participate. It dominated.
Post reply on HN