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

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

#501

Post by lcw » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

lifewallet_dev wrote: post #491

opportune wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to do something less buzzwordy with lots of real-life applications, look into distributed systems. Try running an Apache big data project yourself and write some programs/queries for it, try making a change to the project to do something cool. My suggestion to check out an Apache big data project is just that it gives you a good place to learn, not so you can be a "hadoop specialist" or anything like that…

Oh, so don't do current buzzwords but past ones like Big Data are okay. And if you wanna learn about distributed systems nothing better than Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency based on a P2P protocol.

I agree that they are novel and interesting to learn, but practically speaking, the person's point, is they are over hyped, and honestly since most use cases popping up aren't decentralized or are decentralized, but being regulated by a centralized party, like a government, it seems that they are the most inefficient way to run a distributed system.

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

#502

Post by edgyquant » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

tsss wrote: post #481

jelling wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh...I get why tech people are suspect of Palantir but they're just disrupting other government contractors. And from my limited experience working with the government, they absolutely need / want / rely on having companies hold their hand as they insist on doing things the hard, slow, and very custom way.

It doesn't take much to disrupt a fax machine.

Doesn’t this apply to most startups though? The core technical problems aren’t “hard” it’s that the industry involve can’t adapt due to inertia of entrenched companies.

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

#503

Post by edgyquant » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

morpheuskafka wrote: post #436

As someone doing a CS degree now, I seem to be the only one who doesn't want to have anything on my resume to do with "AI", blockchain, ML, NFT, chatbots, etc... all I see is overhyped product after product, one-size-fits all solutions that frustrate customers and create problems for humans to clean up, hugely valued companies that have very little real improvement over conventional technology, etc. An "AI chatbot" i…

The only reason I care to have to AI or blockchain on my resume is because both are interesting to work with.

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

#504

Post by shadowofneptune » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

kilburn wrote: post #420

wiz21c wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bedside manner + being able to remember a lot of things My impression is that accompanying a patient is super important, it helps to understand illness, to have a plan in case of more complex treatments, etc. Then my doctor has the ability to know me and gauge my health. She's also very good at probabilities and detecting when something really goes wrong. I'm sure that being able to do that require a lot more than…

What many people don't realize is that medicine as a whole is already some sort of expert system (i.e.: a flavor of AI). There are researchers that conduct experiments to produce meaningful data and extract conclusions from that data. Then there are expert panels that produce guidelines from the results of that research. Most diagnostics and treatments are prescribed following decision diagrams that doctors themselve…

The attending physician in a modern hospital system is primarily a manager. Their main concern is treatment of the patient's medical issue, but their role isn't limited to that. This patient is refusing care but also refuses to leave, what do we do? How should we schedule care around a patient who requires the entire floor to assist in daily activities of living? They may not get the last word on matters outside of their responsibilities, but being the physician their words carry weight. This role has remained pretty much constant through the modern medical system, even as medicines change and nurses and technicians gain more responsibilities.

A computer cannot perform that role with the current paradigm of AI, even the worst and most arrogant doctor is more qualified leader than any computer.

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

#505

Post by digisign » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #497

sjg007 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these shirts? I must know!

I don't know but my manager was a non-technical guy with passion for fashion and even his shirts weren't as nice!

Unfortunately, still don't know what you're talking about. Probably because I don't have expertise in the area. Am imaging some kind of white-collar business shirt that's... platinum plated? If the design is not extravagant, how would anyone know?

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

#506

Post by Operyl » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

twexler wrote: post #153

JediPig wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so I worked at IBM cloud, and can confirm this. They bought a cloud service, that by itself, and if left alone would been great. Soft(....something...) was the company... then IBM came and changed everything. I remember the SVP / President of ibm cloud showing up... talking 3 hours about how her son is so great and that we should 'follow' his example... after hour 3, man goes and interrupts and asks a question that w…

Softlayer is the name you're thinking of. They were pretty decent 10 or so years ago, but never touched them after the IBM acquisition.

It has really gone to crap since then, we were softlayer customers before the acquisition and everything is beyond brittle now.

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

#507

Post by dean177 » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #299

HollywoodZero wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like Oracle. No one talks about Oracle. But they're still around. We did a major tech project to migrate off of Oracle after an acquisition of a large org that was running it. It was a year-long effort to migrate. But it was worth it since Oracle renewal costs were going to be nearly 50% of our IT budget.

a) Oracle is proven at scale. b) Large global talent pool of Oracle experts. c) First-class professional support. Not everyone is looking to innovate on their database. Many just want something that is reliable and easily supported.

This is hilarious.

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

#508

Post by Operyl » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

zaidf wrote: post #194

twexler wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Softlayer is the name you're thinking of. They were pretty decent 10 or so years ago, but never touched them after the IBM acquisition.

Softlayer was solid at providing colo and dedicated servers. But they were never really architected with the cloud in mind. The pivot to cloud came later on. I always wonder why IBM didn't buy a provider like Linode.

Likely because at the time (am unsure now) Linode did not own any actual data centers, they were all collocated.

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

#509

Post by rubyfan » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 9:45 PM UTC

tekstar wrote: post #260

I worked for a large e-commerce company. I wanted to investigate putting all our support data into Watson and see what sort of recommendations it could provide, maybe a sort of auto-suggestion to help our customers. Three really funny points stand out from the experience: 1) To apply for Watson access you needed to show C-level approval, so our CEO put his name and phone number on the application (trying Watson was s…

In my experience this seems to be a theme with very senior executives - they are very often interested in snake oil and can’t seem to discern snake oil from real medicine.

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

#510

Post by fphhotchips » Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

throwaheyy wrote: post #452

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an IBM marketing team called HIS CELL and asked for ME. What the fuck is this? A name/email for your company when trying something out is so that you can keep track of any support requests we need, not for you to sell shit to me.

Yeah, the whole culture there (and other places like Oracle) is all about implanting mindshare at the decision-maker level and driving unilateral adoption from the top down. Pursuing such an approach is highly revealing because if the technology actually worked , that approach would not be necessary. Once they’re “in” at the decision-maker level, they can continue to milk the organisation with long-duration support a…

> Pursuing such an approach is highly revealing because if the technology actually worked, that approach would not be necessary.

This is, sadly, untrue. Enterprise reps do this because on the whole, it doesn't matter if you have the best technology - if the other guy is successful at the CxO level, the customer will go their way.