IBM Bob • Hacker News Board

Re: IBM Bob

#121

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 04, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #25

znpy wrote: post #12

Lost opportunity to call it Hal

I'm surprised they didn't use Watson.

[deleted]

Re: IBM Bob

#122

Post by vunderba » Fri, Sep 04, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

antonvs wrote: post #10

Should have been IBM Tom, after legendary IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson. But perhaps they didn't want to sully his name.

As somebody already mentioned, they already had a big product named after their CEO. IBM Watson was the next big thing after Deep Blue, and it went pretty viral after defeating Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter on Jeopardy back in ~2011.

It was a bit of a market play and of course has since been completely upstaged by the invention of LLMs, but it still definitely got them the attention they wanted at the time.

https://www.ibm.com/history/watson-jeopardy

Re: IBM Bob

#123

Post by schiffern » Fri, Sep 04, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

esseph wrote: post #112

Skwid wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you search those names you'll find most have a LinkedIn page proudly displaying their many "IBM Influencer" achievements and qualifications. I realise LinkedIn is a surrealist caricature of corporate reality, but just imagine proudly displaying your #1 shill award for all to see

> I realise LinkedIn is a surrealist caricature of corporate reality I don't think it's a caricature of reality at all, it very much is like the large US corps I've worked at.

Exactly, it really is that absurd. If anything, you could say the corporate world is its own self-caricature.

Re: IBM Bob

#124

Post by SSLy » Fri, Sep 04, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

Stevvo wrote: post #18

Interesting they are renting out agent skills. You can pick up "Java Modernization" at $20 a month for "Specialist workflows to help with modernizing Java applications", or "IBM i" for "Specialist modes, workflows, and skills to work with IBM i applications".

how long before some hero puts them on github?