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IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

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

#661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you check the Disclosures section of your article? Are there any drug companies NOT included there? Like it or not, private companies fund the vast majority of medical research in the U.S., and any doctor who wants to stay up to date cannot (and should not) ignore it all. The authors have no conflict of interest to declare, but declare lecture honoraria or consulting fees as follows: T.U., Bayer, Boehringer Ingel…

I did see that. I don't see that as a reason to doubt the recommendations of this particular article. I thought we were talking about direct marketing by pharmaceutical company representatives by the way. It is of course impossible to separate modern medicine from the pharmaceutical industry since many therapies depend directly on them. It's still the doctor's job to figure out which medicines are actually good and w…

> I don't see that as a reason to doubt the recommendations of this particular article.

No conflict of interest, except they're directly paid by drug companies. That's the sort of thing you'd expect to see in a banana republic, not established medicine. It should call the integrity of the entire system into question, frankly.

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

#662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, AI is just custom software, with people in the back to deal with edge cases?

It's IF statements all the way down, baby.

IF (intelligence.getAnswer("What is the meaning of life?")) {...}

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

#664
post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oracle is a expensive and "popular" database, IBM does many things ( eg. Quantum computers, ... ) Palantir is a consultancy body shop with a dashboard product and a probably good pipeline for merging data. ( Reference - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11646587 ) Pure consultancy is rated much lower ( eg. Thoughtworks if you want a reference)

Consultancy + adaptable software is a decent business model. Unfortunately "adaptable software" for {insert industry} is a really hard target to architect right. Especially when the majority of your tech headcount bills by the hour and gets paid to tell the customer "Yes."

I didn't say it isn't a decent business model.

In the context of pltr, I'm saying it's not similar as Oracle/ibm and comparison is futile.

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

#665

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…

> An "AI chatbot" is far inferior to a real user interface. That's because you're lucky. You have good enough sight and you can use your hands. Unfortunately, that's not the case for millions of people especially since our populations are aging more.

I'm curious about your response here, as I'm certain that I'm missing something. I have cerebral palsy, which comes with issues using my hands. I've also had noticeable degradation with age of my eye-sight over the past couple of years. That said, I'm not sure how a chatbot helps people with these issues. Typing multiple sentences into the chatbot interface is certainly more tiring and error prone that click a few buttons. Similarly, reading multiple lines of minuscule text in a chatbot window is more eye strain than a couple of menus with large text (the larger text being possible since less words need to fit on the screen).

As a developer, I care about accessibility issues. Given your statements, there's obviously a gaping blind spot in how I'm thinking about these issues. Could you elaborate a bit more on the topic?

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

#666
post #306

>that GPs in particular would be replaced by a lower-cost Watson descendant Everybody is trying to replace GPs (and even specialists) with AI. But I've experienced a massive issue in healthcare that does not need an AI, just a good database. I was prescribed intensive imunorepresive therapy... and they forgot to put me on preventative antibiotics. If there was a very simple IF on my prescription (if Medrol > 16mg &&…

> If there was a very simple IF on my prescription This was supposed to be solved by rule-based/expert systems in the 1980s AI bubble.

The "was supposed" is the point of my comment.

It wasn't. Yeah, there are a lot of systems like these who do some part of this, but it's far, FAR from a solved issue.

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

#667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of Thiel's lack of ethics and his support for the political far right?

The company is like a perfect storm of bad actors from horseshoe theory; The actual day to day CEO of palantir is Marxist theorist.

>Karp has described himself as a socialist and a progressive, and said he voted for Hillary Clinton. In 2017, he was recorded during a Palantir company meeting claiming he turned down an invitation from President Trump, saying “I respect nothing about the dude.”

>He has said that technology companies like Palantir have an obligation to support the U.S. military. He has defended Palantir's contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the controversy over family separations, saying that while separations are "a really tough, complex, jarring moral issue," he favors "a fair but rigorous immigration policy". He has said the U.S. government should have a strong hand in tech regulation and that western countries should dominate AI research.

>Karp founded the London-based money management firm Caedmon Group.

>In 2004, along with Peter Thiel (who had been a classmate at Stanford) and others, he co-founded Palantir as CEO.

>He is described as a wellness fanatic who swims, skis cross country, practices Qigong meditation and martial arts, and keeps Tai Chi swords in his offices.

He'd make for a good Silicon Valley or Black Mirror character.

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

#669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, what does RedHat actually do ?

Red Hat is the premier organization doing open source development. They optimize the experiences for enterprises: lots of support and a goal of helping it be easy to use so enterprises can focus on their business logic. Lots of well-hated projects come from Red Hat: systemd, wayland, ... but they have also contributed well to some other projects which are much less controversial.

Aside: Why do people hate Wayland? Systemd loathing I can understand but I think of Wayland as X11 with most of the horrible parts scrubbed away.

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

#670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nobody ever got fired for buying an IBM."

I knew a couple of people who got fired after getting their org sucked into WebSphere. Long time ago but it does happen occasionally.

They were fired because of WebSphere?

The quote I mentioned is just a quote, but it points to a part of a reason. If you are a CEO or a high level executive of a big company, going with IBM or Oracle is a safe bet. It's not very likely you will be blamed for failures of IBM or Oracle. It may be a money hole and bad for business but it's a much safer bet than going with some smaller vendor instead of big name vendors.

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