IBM Watson To Replace Salespeople and Cold-Callers

An anonymous reader writes "After conquering Jeopardy! and making inroads into the diagnosis of medical maladies, IBM's next application for Watson is improving sales and customer support. Companies will be able to simply fill Watson (or rather, DeepQA) with domain-specific information about products and services, and sit back as it uses its natural language processing skills to answer the queries of potential customers. The potential benefits are huge. Watson could either augment existing sales and support teams, or replace them entirely. Also, in a beautiful and self-fulfilling twist, the first application of this re-purposed Watson will be be internally, at IBM, to help sell more IBM Watsons to other companies."

Comments

Jobs killer

[jaymzter]

Mark my words, this will kill the economy, just like ATMs did.

Re:Jobs killer

[Anonymous Coward]

They make it sound like Watson's going to be answering the phone. But speech recognition still isn't dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.
Watson processes written language.

Re:Jobs killer

[Billly Gates]

You know these sales and marketing people were all behind the outsourcing and devaluing I.T. jobs because the sales and marketing people made money, not computer geeks. As a testament to their success they convinced accountants to label them as "profit centers" while I.T. was labeled a "cost center". Guess which one the executives choose to fund more of vs cutting the other?

Now these same people are being outsourced and it is genius.

Re:Jobs killer

[modmans2ndcoming]

so... now the IT folks will be profit centers because they are supporting Watson!

Re:Jobs killer

[Riceballsan]

Twice as awesome, to be replaced by machines, that will have to be supported by IT.

Re:Jobs killer

[rainmouse]

They make it sound like Watson's going to be answering the phone. But speech recognition still isn't dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all. Watson processes written language.

from TFA - You might be a little terrified the first time you pick up your phone to hear dulcet but unmistakably-computerized tones of Watson saying “Hello, can I interest you in cheap home insurance?”

The worst thing about speech recognition software in Europe such as what the Odeon uses, is that you have to put on a forced American accent if you want to stand a chance of even remotely being understood, especially if your from Scotland.

Re:Jobs killer

[homer_s]

Nah, it was electricity that killed jobs. And not to mention, the wheel.

Re:Jobs killer

[geekoid]

A fork of Watson will support Watson.

Re:Jobs killer

[CRCulver]

When automation reduced industrial jobs, people could move into the service economy. But now automation is reducing service economy jobs. Where will they move to? While there's always some room for innovation, it's not impossible that we may reach a point where the majority of unemployed people simply cannot "move somewhere else".

Re:Jobs killer

[Normal Dan]

Good. That means the people who used to sit on phones all day can now go and do something productive and help increase the wealth of the nation.

Re:Jobs killer

[benjamindees]

No, the salespeople who are selling Watson are the new profit center. In fact it's salespeople all the way down.

Re:Jobs killer

[scamper_22]

Mark my words... this is what computers were meant to do:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2218882&cid=36363480

I work with computers all day.
I often wonder what people think computers are all about.

They're all about replacing human labor. I find it odd working in this field and talking to people outside it.

People outside the field seem to think that every age has a 'new economy' but everything else stays the same... as if nothing has changed in history. So they talk as if the 'green' economy will provide everyone with jobs... just 'green' jobs. Or they think we'll all be doing analytical work.

The problem is typically these people lack an understanding of scale. It's odd how so many academics lack an understanding of scale as well. All the 'good' jobs of the future are jobs that do not scale with the population. They are for small groups of highly skilled people.

So Google can do all it does with a mere 30K people or so. That is enough to serve the whole world. Just to put it in context. BlockBuster employed 60K people and it represents just a sliver of what Google can do (content delivery).

The single biggest problem is that the private sector is increasingly not scaling with population. Small highly efficient operations are there.

The public sector typically does scale with population. More nurses, doctors, police officers, teachers... are needed as the population grows. Now we can certainly try and automate parts of these jobs (online class delivery...), but in general we're not there technologically or the unions won't allow it.

So we have a structural imbalance. The only way out of it... is to go to the start... computers are doing what they were meant to do... kill human labor. We should all be working less... job sharing. the result is a much more egalitarian society... with potentially a very rich upper class at the top of some of the automation companies.

However that would kill people's position of privilege in society. Public sector workers expect a premium over the average person. Ditto for bankers...

IMHO, we need to embrace deflation and the lack of work and redirect people to the jobs that still need doing. Maybe we need vast numbers of people to work on the farms 2 weeks a year. Other need to go mine for rechargeable batteries.

One of the biggest problem we still face is the emphasis on 'educated' labor. Just as the industrial revolution automated manufacturing jobs. The information revolution automates so much educated labor. We need a few experts, but computing can do the rest.

So we need to get rid of the idea that just because you're educated, you should be paid more. Most of the legal and financial jobs are unproductive today. Just there to keep educated people in a premium position over society. We could for example automate and simplify the entire tax field and get rid of most accountants.

But as I said, people are used to their position of privilege. Egalitarianism is a hard concept... even though people talk about it. When people talk about good jobs, they mean jobs better than someone else.

It's definitely going to be a rough time... especially since technology is deflationary... but governments and banks are inflationary. We certainly can't embrace deflation as governments have so much debt and banks are dependent on people taking loans... and guess who is in charge of most countries (bankers and governments...)

Expect a rough time.

Re:Jobs killer

[Sycraft-fu]

Well ultimately, if automation replaces all human functions, we'll not need to work. The reason we need to work is so that we can have the things in life that we need to survive and want to be happy. Get it to the point machines can do all that, and humans can just relax.

That's a rather long way away though. Still a whole lot machines can't do, and even in the things they can do, humans have to mind after them.

But ultimately, it is not a problem. A fully automated economy might be the death of capitalism, but it wouldn't be a situation where "Everyone is unemployed and nobody has anything." Rather it would be "Nobody needs to work because machines do that, they do what they please and have their needs provided for."

Re:Jobs killer

[Overzeetop]

No, that will never be the case. Just as they predicted that computers would make for a 10-20 hour workweek.

You see, we currently pay people in return for their time. $40,000 (or $80k, or $120k) buys you a person for a year. Now, whether they do 40 hours of work a week to produce TPS reports, or you give them a computer so they can produce the equivalent of 80 hours worth of TPS reports in a week, the market is for a week of time. Business owners understand this, and their income is based on then number of TPS reports.

Let's say you've got 100 employees each making 10 TPS reports a week. Lets assume you are "right-sized" and there is only a market for 1000TPS reports in a week. Now you buy a Watson that can produce 100 TPS reports per person employed. Would you keep everybody on and let them work 4 hours a week, or would you fire 90 employees, keep the ten you need, pay the cost of Watson* with the savings in payroll, and pocket the extra?

That's exactly what has happened over the past 40 years. We are getting more efficient, but it's not leading to shorter weeks - it's leading to higher unemployment, and higher unemployability. As things get more complex, fewer humans have the mental capacity to operate the machines of business efficiently.

The more machines do, the "expendable" end of the human capability bell curve moves further to the right.

*note: if at all possible, IBM will charge for Watson the annual sum of about 85 employees, including maintenance and upgrades, for licensing.

Re:Jobs killer

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

From http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/06/obama-doesnt-get-atms-or-job-creation

That should serve as the first hint that ATMs are job creators, not job killers. But the even more obvious problem with Obama's statement is that it isn't even factually correct to say that ATM machines displaced bank tellers. The number of ATMs more than doubled between 1998 and 2008, from 187,000 to 401,500, according to the American Bankers Association. Yet data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that during the same period, the number of bank tellers rose from 560,000 to 600,500. BLS expects "favorable" job prospects for bank tellers over the next decade.

John Hall, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association, explained that when ATMs started being used more widely, there was a lot of talk about them eliminating human bank branches, but it turned out that customers wanted both. The number of bank branches in the United States has grown from 81,444 in 1992 to 99,109 by late 2010, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. During that time, the total number of bank workers rose from 1.8 million to more than 2 million.

But don't let things like facts get in the way of proliferating Obama's talking points.

Besides, should we still be employing the buggy whip makers since cars displaced them? At what point should a job be declared obsolete?

Re:Jobs killer

[Telvin_3d]

No, that will never be the case. Just as they predicted that computers would make for a 10-20 hour workweek... We are getting more efficient, but it's not leading to shorter weeks

A large part of this is a failure to adequately account for human nature, consumer culture and changes in wealth distribution. Back in the 60s and 70s and 80s when each new revolution in automation hit all the magazines and news programs were full of news that, since this wold double our productivity, in another decade everyone would have to work half as much.

And it's true. As a society we could provide everyone from top to bottom with an 60's upper-middleclass lifestyle for only a day or two of work each week. Why didn't this happen? First, it relies on the idea that there is some fixed goal that everyone is working towards. That once everyone has filled their checklist of stuff they are done. Instead, there is always more stuff being made and marketed. Consumer culture is as much a moving target as productivity is. The supply expands to fill the available capital.

More importantly, the people who enjoyed increased productivity are very rarely the people who benefit from it. If a factory doubles its output the owners don't double wages. It is the same across every industry. Word processing and e-mail didn't free up time for office workers. It just spelled the end of their secretaries.

This is reflected in the real wages and income distribution of the last 40 years or so. Adjusted for inflation, real wages have actually fallen by about ten percent since the 60s. We are being paid less for higher efficiency. At one point the top 1% of the population received roughly 15% of the national income. Now the top 1% receives 24%. One quarter of every dollar earned in the USA goes to the top 1% every year. In the 50s CEO's salaries averaged about 30x what their average employee made. Now the ratio is often several thousand times.

So massive gains in efficiency have been made. But those who enjoy the resulting gains are never those who are generating more work.

Re:Jobs killer

[Telvin_3d]

I can see why you posted AC. No one would want even a made up ID attached to such a clumsy troll, and I almost can't believe I am replying.

You are linking to average household income. In the last 40 years a radical thing happened and most of those households went from single earner to two earners. So what it's demonstrating is that over the last 40 years a majority of households had to double the number of people working just to gain a roughly 25% increase in real income. Sounds like a loss to me.

Re:Great,

[ColdWetDog]

Now voice-response menu systems are artificially intelligent. This is not an improvement.

Think an unholy union of Skynet and QVC.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The last barrier to immediately hanging up

[SpiralSpirit]

The only reason I don't hang up right away on sales/survey calls is because deep down I don't like being rude, even to strangers. The minute I hear a machine or recording I hang up, though. For support, if I can't talk to a human that speaks the same language as I do within a reasonable time frame, I don't use the service. Replace humans at your peril.

Might work

[khendron]

Customer: Can you tell me the location of your office in the United States?
Watson: Toronto?????

Re:Might work

[sortadan]

Watson: What is Toronto?

Now, finally ...

[foobsr]

(drum fill) REAL sales droids. All you ever wanted. Yuck.

CC.

"Dear Aunt.

[0100010001010011]

Let's set so double the killer delete select all."

Now searching.

"The best way to commit a double homicide would be to..."

Support Calls == Compicated

[brunes69]

The thing companies seem to fail to understand is, if someone is CALLING YOU, especially in 2011, then their question / answer is LIKELY COMPLEX. If my query could be answered via a Google search or my transaction be done on your website, then why the F do you think I would be calling you? No, I am calling you because it is something only a human can do, so get me to a freaking human ASAP.

Yes, it is true that we used to be the tech-savvy minorty. This is no longer the case. Who does not bank online? Who doesn't pay their bills online? If you bank online and are calling the bank, what on earth could you be calling about that could be done by a robo-call? Nothing.

Re:Support Calls == Compicated

[ColdWetDog]

You haven't done much tech support recently, have you? Much of it is still at 'are you sure the computer is plugged in' level.

Again, this isn't pitched at you, it's for them.

AI salesman vs the law

[Fractal Dice]

What are the legal implications of Watson lying? of providing false or misleading information?

Re:One big reason it will not work

[betterunixthanunix]

On the other hand, the ability of Watson to augment a live human at a call center should be considered. On several occasions, I have been transferred from one person to another because the first few people had no clue what I was asking about -- "You want to do what with your cell phone? What's GSM? Do you want to buy a 3G plan?" It would be very helpful if something Watson could help them understand what it is that is being asked, and perhaps provide some sort of answers.

Now, I may be overly optimistic about the way that Watson will ultimately be used, but that is another story entirely. Watson is not necessarily a bad idea for those situations where a less-than-knowledgeable person is forced to deal with a technical question from a customer (and I really cannot be the only person in the world who asks technical questions).

Soft AI Customer Support

[BJ_Covert_Action]

So they want to use a somewhat intelligent(?) computer to augment and/or replace their customer support? And here I didn't think customer support could get any worse than the current automation/unknowledgeable representative hell that exists?

If any company is going to honestly transfer its customer service division into the hands of a computer, you can kiss any useful support goodbye permanently from that company.

Then they'll either drop you as a customer...

[rsilvergun]

...(because you cost too much to maintain) or you'll adapt to their systems. And for Pete's sake, stop trotting out that overused ATM bit. It's called an EXAMPLE. It's how you illustrate a broad trend. ATMs are one of many, many ways that people are lost jobs to automation. There's lots more examples. My favorite is the sleeping bag factory that cranked out 1 million + bags/yr with just 300 employees. Then there's all the small craft businesses (like closet makers) that used to be highly specialized and now are being replaced by a few expert systems.

I don't know if you're old enough to remember, but back in the 80s were promised expert systems that would do these things and free us up for leisure time. Trouble is, instead of leisure time we're getting pink slips and a one way ticket to the gutter we're schedule to die in. Thing is, I've yet to hear a compelling solution to the problem of automation that doesn't just boil down to 1) Anyone w/o jobs dies of starvation or 2) Some form of socialism. What I do hear a lot of is attempts to ignore / downplay the problem. Remember Biotech? Where are the jobs? And even if we had them, how the hell would anyone get trained for them when we're cutting back on education budgets left and right?

Re:Then they'll either drop you as a customer...

[rsilvergun]

You assume that people in power would allow us to transition to a post scarcity economy. All their power is based on scarcity. But another way, what use is being rich if no one is poor?

Also, you're working on the assumption that we don't have enough resources to feed and shelter everyone and maintain a reasonable standard of living for yourself. This is a lie the rich are perpetuating as part of a class war they are fighting (it's easy to win a war when the other side doesn't know there is one, btw). Please, please watch this. To summarize for those that can't click, in the last 20 years the economy doubled in size and population increased 30%. So there's 30% more people and 100% more wealth. There is plenty, but it's being snapped up by a lucky few. I'll end with a joke:

"A rich man, a union man and a teabagger are sitting at a table with 10 apples. The rich man grabs 8 apples, turns to the teabagger and says 'Hey, I think that guy's gonna to steal your apple'".

Thank you, and goodnight!

Re:Then they'll either drop you as a customer...

[ultranova]

Thing is, I've yet to hear a compelling solution to the problem of automation that doesn't just boil down to 1) Anyone w/o jobs dies of starvation or 2) Some form of socialism.

That's because there isn't any. Either the society takes care of the weak, which is socialism, or it doesn't, in which case they die. And since power tends to accumulate - the more you have the easier it is to get yet more - almost all are weak.

Also, I find it interesting that a society that's so big on democracy - distribution of political power to everyone - is nonetheless perfectly okay with the concentration of economic power into just a few hands. It seems your local robber barons certainly used Cold War effectively.

Re:One big reason it will not work

[Anne_Nonymous]

Plus, lets just say I'm the head of a large government agency, and I'm going to spend a few billion dollars on a large consulting contract. Who am I going to buy from, IBM, who has Watson, who can answer all my questions? Or some other company, who has an actual salesman, who can buy me a lapdance and a couple of scotches?

Don't cross the beams

[SMoynihan]

Just wait, soon there will be Watson powered answering machines.

And soon after, we'll have these AI cold-callers interacting with same AI answering machines...

And what conversations will they have, on phones unmonitored by humans?

Such a disappointment

[antifoidulus]

Come on IBM, finally, finally, FINALLY we have an opportunity to actually create a talking car a la Knight Rider and you let it go to waste on such frivolous tasks as winning a game show, doing medical diagnoses, and selling people stuff. This must make David Hasselhoff so mad that he is rolling around half-naked on the floor unable to even eat a simple cheeseburger.

wrong wrong wrong wrong, and wrong

[decora]

nobody who controls the machines is going to just give food and housing and water to people.

example? health care. if you are a wal-mart part-time employee, and you get cancer, which something like 1/3 of people will, you have to declare bankruptcy. if you get a splinter in your foot and it gets infected, and you need time off work, you will probably get fired. and wal-mart can make a profit if you die on the job, because of something called 'dead peasant insurance'.

wal-mart, with one of the most advanced IT departments in the world, did not use this new found wealth from machine automation to improve the lives of the people. it used it to cut costs, slash benefits, destroy unions, outsource production to military dictatorships, and so forth and so on.

there are countless other examples.

if these examples keep being ignored, we will be where we were in the early 1900s in europe . . . masses of starving people who had nothing to lose, and so joined revolutionary movements to overthrow the existing governments and try bizarre social experiments that ended in horror.

Re:wrong wrong wrong wrong, and wrong

[AmiMoJo]

nobody who controls the machines is going to just give food and housing and water to people.

Unless we own them, and by 'we' I mean the government. That is what the government is: our collective ownership and provision of services.

where?

[decora]

im sorry, 'productive job that helps increase the wealth of the nation' returned no hits on Monster.

while you live in a fantasy land, real flesh and blood people cannot pay the rent or feed themselves with ideology.

before there could be 'garage based startups', people had to have garages. if you are homeless you cant have a garage.

henry ford begs to differ

[decora]

this is not about buggy whips and ATMs.

this is about massive unemployment that will destabilize society and lead to mass starvation and mass homelessness. there aren't any jobs. when buggy whips went out, there were auto factories. there was Henry Ford, who decided for the hell of it to increase the pay of ALL HIS WORKERS, including janitors, by several multiples. old industries were replaced by new industries. those new industries payed better and they provided more opportunity to improve oneself educationally.

---

now, we have old industries dying, and no new industries replacing them.

any 'new industries' left are not paying better. they are paying worse. they are part time, no health care, no set schedule, no nothing. there are people who work at hospitals now who get no health insurance. thats where we are headed as a society.

there are no Henry Fords nowdays increasing workers pay. those CEOs would be fired in the modern era for 'wasting stockholder value' and sued for lowering stock price.

this is not 'just like the last time'. this time is different. really different.

Re:Calculated customer drops == quality drops

[rsilvergun]

What kind of grief can you possibly give them? You're obviously well educated (by American Standards) and have a highly critical mind. The vast majority of people lack your education & critical thinking skills. Very few people are like that. Most base decisions on their 'gut', meaning their emotions. Advertising will play on those emotions and drown out any objections they have. A recent study shows that a 3 week advertising blitz could change 51% of the public's opinion on ANYTHING.

I guess my point is, you can't win with that kind of logic. I'm pretty sure I know what you're getting at, which is the same free market, invisible hand clap trap that is failing miserably now. Fact is, Adam Smith envisioned a world of small shop owners and what today we'd call a mid sized business. The capitalists lived near enough the proles to suffer the consequences, plus a revolt was practical and possible (if you think violent revolutions is still possible, you need to read up on what modern military hardware is capable of). Smith didn't foresee Mega-Corps more powerful than any king & globalism pitting a working in Spokane against one if Bangalore. He was an economist, now a futurist.

Face it, Capitalism is broke, permanently. Modern society needs something as powerful as a Mega-Corp to stand up to a Mega-Corp. It's foolish to even suggest that a lose-knit group of balkanized citizens are going to do anything but what their corporate Masters tell them. I propose a strong central government as a solution. Yes, the power is probably going to get abused, but at least from time to time some good will come of it. I've never understood why people are perfectly OK with getting reamed by a Mega-Corp with zero accountability and 10 times the power of even the most base King or Queen, but their scared shitless of the government. Wait, strike that, I do understand. Almost forget the 50 years of indoctrination and scaremongering about the big bad Communists. Convenient, eh?

Re:Calculated customer drops == quality drops

[rsilvergun]

Actually, we're not the most prosperous nation. Most of Europe has us beat on any statistics that don't involve owning cars and really big houses. In terms of education, economic security, pay, hours worked, health care and just about any other measure we're lagging behind every other 1st world nation. And if you're looking at the gap between rich and poor, we're behind war torn Egypt for Chris' sake. There are some cracks in Europe's armor, but their mostly from following our awful policies (like the bank deregulation in Greece that caused billions of shady capital to flow in and run rampant). Basically, the ruling class of Europe is seeing the crazy gains in wealth that the American ruling class has and salivating. Unless you happen to be a member of the ruling class, or one of their cherished lackeys, you're about to get screwed.

And for the last bloody time, repeat after me: THE SOVIET UNION WAS NOT, NOR HAS IT EVER BEEN, COMMUNIST. Sorry to shout, but I'm so sick and tired of seeing them trotted out as an example of Socialism's failure when they were nothing more than a fascist dictatorship the whole time. China too, for the record.

And I never said it was THE answer, I said it was the BEST answer we have. It's a snowball's chance in hell, but I'll take a snowball in hell over what the right wing Mega-Corps have planned for me any day. I MIGHT make out OK with the government. They at least pretend to listen to me. Mega-Corps are legally required to screw me as much as possible (for the good of the shareholder, of course).

Re:Have real wages really fallen?

[Telvin_3d]

The post that you linked appears to be somewhat... misleading. I did a quick glance it is seems to be a set of talking points around lies, damn lies and (most importantly) statistics. The first graph builds in 'compensation' along with wages. It's an undefined term and my guess is that it includes things like heavily hedged retirement funds and stock options. The growth line certainly looks like it spikes at the 90s tech bubble and everyone knows how that turned out in terms of long term worth. It also doesn't say how it includes or doesn't include things like medicare.

The second graph is good old fashioned cherry-picked statistics. They have taken one small sector that goes against the general trend. Then they have chopped off the information that disagrees with them. Note that all their other graphs start in the 60s or earlier. This one starts after '85. Then they have compressed the axis to make it look like a much larger gain. So their (presumably) strongest supporting evidence is an industry (manufacturing) that has seen the largest layoffs and off-shoring in the period they chose to include, leaving behind mostly senior positions, and it still only resulted in a 20% wage increase over 20 years.

The rest of their graphs are cherry-picking goods that have in general gone against inflation trends and comparing them to wages. For example, the price of computers or eggs has gone against inflation. They are effectively de-adjusting for inflation and then acting like the bigger number is relevant.

Finally, it's a website that advertises itself as a supporter of the Austrian School of economics. These are the people who believe in complete deregulation of everything, no taxes of any kind and that the only appropriate government spending under any circumstances is military. In any serious discussion the outlier fanatics of any sort need to be taken with a grain of salt, regardless of the side of the discussion.

I grabbed my info from here, somewhat ironically also referencing the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's a quick and dirty link but in-line with what I have see in the past across various web and print publications.

A modest proposal

[Legion303]

We could just replace sales teams and cold callers with large heaps of festering shit instead. It would be cheaper, and no one would even notice.

Re:Calculated customer drops == quality drops

[radtea]

I'm so sick and tired of seeing them trotted out as an example of Socialism's failure when they were nothing more than a fascist dictatorship the whole time. China too, for the record.

And yet isn't it curious that every single time anyone anywhere declares themselves dedicated to socialism their country just happens to wind up a fascist dictatorship? You can see the process happening right now in Venezuela under "President for (almost) Life" Chavez, and the supporters of Venezuelan socialism are absolutely explicit about the fascist nature of their "revolution": they say very clearly that socialism in Venezuela is incredibly fragile and utterly dependent upon the person of their Leader to be successful. If you've been following the story at all you'll have seen this, from Venezuelan socialists themselves. They don't of course point out the fragility their insistence on a fascist model implies, but it is very clearly there.

So it is hardly a strong defense of socialism to point to its failures as those of fascist dictatorship, when every attempt at socialism ever tried becomes a fascist dictatorship.

Social democracy, on the other hand, does not end in fascist dictatorship, in part because it does not embrace the ridiculous and counter-productive class-warfare model that socialism uses. As any student of 20th century history will realize, "war model" approaches to human conflict are the least efficient, least effective means of solution, and very frequently result in some very unsavoury characters ending up in control of the state.