IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts • Hacker News Board

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#211

Post by jac241 » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #142

saxonww wrote: post #14

I really expected that we'd see a change in my lifetime, that GPs in particular would be replaced by a lower-cost Watson descendant, with there being some other role for patient interaction, wet work, and data entry (perhaps just nurses). My mom worked for a GP for about 20 years, and it seemed to me that most of what made that guy a doctor was bedside manner + being able to remember a lot of things. But GPs often ma…

Medicine is a business. Its incentive is profit, not patient outcome. Everybody knows the problems with medicine and the solutions are straightforward. But they don't result in more profits, only better patient outcomes. So you only get advances when it increases profit. Come up with a way for better patient outcomes to result in higher profits and you'll see advances in patient care real damn fast.

Please list some of the solutions, because from where I am (actually in a hospital) all I see are people who care about patient outcomes.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#212

Post by lotsofpulp » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

raincom wrote: post #166

sandworm101 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> They were basically toy projects being advertised as ground-breaking AI. They were media events that lead to powerful media events, which in turn lead to investors pumping money into the stock price. Shareholder value is the only real profit. Watson being on Jeopardy no doubt garnered investment dollars from thousands of wealthy retirees. Those toy projects earned their keep many times over.

This is a great insight. Even if execs know $x billions will be wasted on such trendy projects (toy projects to those who know what’s going on), they will still go and spend $x billions. Why? Since it keeps the market cap going up. This positive delta in the market cap is almost 10 times more than $x billions.

Not for IBM.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IBM/ibm/market-cap

It is even worse than it looks considering the opportunity cost of not sticking the money in basically risk free and cost free SP500 ETFs. Even Warren Buffett took a huge bath on IBM.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#213

Post by colinmhayes » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

tryptophan wrote: post #43

lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that GPs in particular would be replaced by a lower-cost Watson descendant It is happening. They are called physician assistants and nurse practitioners, "supervised" by a doctor. I assume going forward, they will take more and more of the usual pink eye/ear infection/flu and other common work that does not require 6 to 8 years of post bachelor education.

It's happening because hospital corporations love them. Corps can pay less, and since they have a tenth of the education, they order tons of profitable tests, consults, and scans because they don't know otherwise.

This is why insurances are moving toward capitated plans. Instead of paying for services provided health care providers get paid per patient they care for. That way the perverse incentive created by asymmetric information is removed.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#214

Post by cycomanic » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #48

I do not understand how IBM stays in business. As far as I’m concerned the only cool engineering thing IBM does anymore is POWER, which has a sort of unique memory architecture but otherwise is well behind everyone else. What else did they do in my lifetime? They took a profitable RedHat and gutted it, they took the best Laptop line and sold it to Lenovo and almost ruined it, they tried to be a front runner in ML but…

I think what many people don't realise is the insane amount of research that is being done at IBM. In lots of areas, I know of quantum computing, silicon photonics, process development for integrated circuits, processors... They still file the most patents per year in the world by quite a margin (9000, the only one being remotely close is Samsung at 6000, for comparison apple and MS have 3000) and while I am not a big fan of patents, I do realise that one has to do significant research for getting this amount.

They probably could just run much of the business just on the licencing fees they get. If you think they are not doing anything you're likely not their target customer.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#215

Post by bastardoperator » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #48

I do not understand how IBM stays in business. As far as I’m concerned the only cool engineering thing IBM does anymore is POWER, which has a sort of unique memory architecture but otherwise is well behind everyone else. What else did they do in my lifetime? They took a profitable RedHat and gutted it, they took the best Laptop line and sold it to Lenovo and almost ruined it, they tried to be a front runner in ML but…

Easy. Governments, emerging countries, and heavy handed consulting. Once you're on their garbage it becomes near impossible to leave it.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#216

Post by MattGaiser » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

user3939382 wrote: post #7

I could be mistaken because it’s been a while, but I read that Watson’s diagnostic capabilities turned out to be mostly marketing and that eventually IBM ended up hiring teams of doctors to process the diagnosis requests that were coming into Watson.

> that eventually IBM ended up hiring teams of doctors to process the diagnosis requests that were coming into Watson.

Sounds like another health care company where the exec just got convicted.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#217

Post by colinmhayes » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

listenallyall wrote: post #151

Brybry wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American medical system is truly bizarre. I've been to private practices where every day at lunch or near end of day there would be some drug rep with food for all the staff. And a psychiatrist that had stacks of free samples of drugs. Even contact lenses are marketed with free samples.

Everyone talks about the relationship between drug reps and doctors like it's the most incestuous, evil, corrupt thing. How else are doctors, especially those who are 10, 20 years removed from their residency, supposed to learn about new treatments and medicines? Alexa, what is best current treatment for a duodenal ulcer? You think a doctor is going to spend his limited downtime perusing the PDR (which no longer exis…

In Illinois Doctors have to go to a one week conference every year that is supposed to talk about this stuff. They also have to take board exams every few years that make sure they're staying caught up on new advances.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#218

Post by treis » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #129

blip54321 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised by some companies too, until I worked outside of tech. The whole rest of the universe needs software too. Most companies are grossly incompetent to develop it themselves. Most are things that SWEs of the type which visit HN would never, ever want to work on. IBM does that adequately well. That's "services." If I need a tool built which will manage workflow at a management consulting firm, a custom too…

Honestly, I’m not sure IBM is a step up from the Indian firms. It’s certainly more expensive (like, ridiculously so) for not much more quality, if any.

IBM is basically an Indian firm these days

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#219

Post by louniks » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

zitsarethecure wrote: post #204

nickysielicki wrote: post #48

I do not understand how IBM stays in business. As far as I’m concerned the only cool engineering thing IBM does anymore is POWER, which has a sort of unique memory architecture but otherwise is well behind everyone else. What else did they do in my lifetime? They took a profitable RedHat and gutted it, they took the best Laptop line and sold it to Lenovo and almost ruined it, they tried to be a front runner in ML but…

> They took a profitable RedHat and gutted it, I know they bought Red Hat but I didn't hear that they gutted it. Can you expand on that?

I'm a Red Hatter, and I'm not sure what they mean either. I obviously only know my own little corner of engineering, but I've seen no signs whatsoever of being gutted. From where I stand, it's just a change of ownership that, at least for now, is completely transparent on the ground. I expect the situation to continue for as long as Red Hat keeps making money.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#220

Post by samarama » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

absoluteharam wrote: post #94

vishnugupta wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I heard they were dabbling in Blockchain. Atleast they were publicly making noise about it.

Most big tech companies got out of or significantly scaled back their blockchain business, it is solution chasing a problem. The web3 people apparently haven’t caught on yet https://petri.com/blockchain-bust-microsoft-joins-ibm-with-b...

The problem is infinitely printable FIAT, controlled by corrupt and incompetent politicians that is very slow and very expensive to to transact overseas and mutable.

The solution is 100x faster, cheaper, more secure, immutable, less prone to fraud and limited in supply.

It’s a very simple calculation.