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IBM Dumping $1 Billion Into New Watson Group
Nerval's Lobster writes "IBM believes its Watson supercomputing platform is much more than a gameshow-winning gimmick: its executives are betting very big that the software will fundamentally change how people and industries compute. In the beginning, IBM assigned 27 core researchers to the then-nascent Watson. Working diligently, those scientists and developers built a tough 'Jeopardy!' competitor. Encouraged by that success on live television, Big Blue devoted a larger team to commercializing the technology—a group it made a point of hiding in Austin, Texas, so its members could better focus on hardcore research. After years of experimentation, IBM is now prepping Watson to go truly mainstream. As part of that upgraded effort (which includes lots of hype-generating), IBM will devote a billion dollars and thousands of researchers to a dedicated Watson Group, based in New York City at 51 Astor Place. The company plans on pouring another $100 million into an equity fund for Watson's growing app ecosystem. If everything goes according to IBM's plan, Watson will help kick off what CEO Ginni Rometty refers to as a third era in computing. The 19th century saw the rise of a "tabulating" era: the birth of machines designed to count. In the latter half of the 20th century, developers and scientists initiated the 'programmable' era—resulting in PCs, mobile devices, and the Internet. The third (potential) era is 'cognitive,' in which computers become adept at understanding and solving, in a very human way, some of society's largest problems. But no matter how well Watson can read, understand and analyze, the platform will need to earn its keep. Will IBM's clients pay lots of money for all that cognitive power? Or will Watson ultimately prove an overhyped sideshow?"
..your city / state / whatever region, hasn't counted on call centres being a major source of employment, because that shit is going bye bye.
Soon.
I guess they are going to turn Watson loose on the stock market and make their billion back in a nanosecond...
Watson isn't about organizing information, it's about thinking enough to arrive at a conclusion.
Even today, my 84 year old father has learned how to gather information off the web. A child learns to do it in minutes. Imagine what Watson will be able to glean in seconds.
Finally, imagine Watson as a programmer. Optimum code - self debugging - as much documentation as you want - and perhaps the biggest asset - the ability to adjust the scope every time the customer changes their mind, without complaining.
Skynet? No, I'm thinking more like Colossus, the Forbin Project.
Will IBM's clients pay lots of money for all that cognitive power?
While TFA emphasizes the correlation between "cognitive" and the previous "jeopardy success", that jeopardy program was still extremely far away from human reasoning. The answer to that questions is: Of course. The ultimate goal of computing is the human reasoning. Once that step is reached, there is no reason the computer would not be able to improve that "cognitive power" by it(him)self, providing revolutionary reasoning power, thanks to almost unlimited potential hardware extensions which is available to the computer, contrary to the human brain, limited to relatively little progress thanks to hard learning and working.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
It just might show the ultimate clue for computer intelligence: The ability to determine a personal gain and advantage from telling a lie.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
IBM is spending a billion dollars on AI. That's serious. IBM usually succeeds at making what they set out to make.
Nah, Google would rather invest more money in schemes to compete with Facebook which is consistent with their business strategy so far since they've always made their money from advertising. And IBM has been about corporate infrastructure for a long time. As many have noted, Watson isn't about being a true A.I. It's about being able to fire all your call center techs.
The first human made computer was the Abacus.
It was used by the masses (mainly businessmen) to count their money.
Then came the Babbage Machine and Ada Lovelace - the first ever hardware / software combo. It was an important step in the evolutionary path of the computer but its effect was not as widespread as that of the Abacus.
Then came the electrical computer, with diodes. It was mainly used by the elites (military / academic) for war / research purposes.
And this was followed by the mainframe era - where corporations that were rich enough started to infiltrate the "elite circle" and gained the power to let computer automating part of their business activities.
Beginning in the 1970's the computer started to go back to where it came from, the masses. With hobby DIY kits, with many a hacker burning their finger tips to assemble their own computers, people started to realize and to tap on to what the computer can offer them.
It was, in fact, the IBM, an elite corporation (at that time) which popularize the computer - by deciding to *NOT* stopping others in duplicating the original IBM PC design.
This process went on for about 30-odd years and the computer progress from the desktop to the phone, and then, to wearables (wrist watch, head-bands, glasses).
As the masses started to get comfortable with computers, it moves up-stream again, back to the elites.
This "Watson" program represents another chapter of the computer evolution, and this time, it goes back to the elite circle.
So, as we see, the computer, starting as Abacus, was a device for the masses. And then, it became a device for the elites (Babbage machine). Then it became a device for the masses again (cellphone, tablets, wearables). And now, it moves back to the elites.
Tick - - - tock - - - tick - - - and now... tock
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I recently read an article on Watson, on how hard it was to model medical knowledge in it (in one of the first commercial applications that is being created now). In essence this kind of modelling must happen for all potential applications, these are projects of significant effort. But, it is surely interesting how this more modern expert system technology is inching forward, even if I expect that it will be many years before we encounter a machine comparable to HAL.
Why do you think it's AI ? Sounds to me 'just' a 'big-data' application.
As far as I've been able to determine it's just a cluster of machines running Apache Hadoop and some of their own software to shift through data:
Watson's software was written in various languages, including Java, C++, and Prolog, and uses Apache Hadoop framework for distributed computing, Apache UIMA (Unstructured Information Management Architecture) framework, IBM’s DeepQA software and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 operating system. According to IBM, "more than 100 different techniques are used to analyze natural language, identify sources, find and generate hypotheses, find and score evidence, and merge and rank hypotheses."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)#Software
New things are always on the horizon
IBM has several large customers already using it, they even pitched it to the company I work for. The things they have it doing around predictive analytics are really impressive.
Why do you think it's AI ? Sounds to me 'just' a 'big-data' application.
As far as I've been able to determine it's just a cluster of machines running Apache Hadoop and some of their own software to shift through data.
These characterizations are not exactly wrong, but they are not useful. To discuss Watson in terms of its implementing technologies is to completely miss the point, as does dismissing it as a 'big-data app' (real AI, when it arrives, may well have 'big data' attributes.) The use of 'just' here is a misleading application of emphasis.
I don't think Watson deserves to be called AI either, but it is impressive, nonetheless.
Watson is not AI. It is clever NLP, but basically just a fast, parallelized database with some learning capabilities. That does not mean it is useless, but it cannot do most things non-experts would expect from an AI and its application is limited to certain types of tasks. Simplified, what it can do is apply things it finds in "books" in standard-situations. To be fair, this is the level many (most?) humans never really exceed either.
Also interestingly, when IBM representatives speak to experts, they never call Watson an AI. I have observed that several times now. So IBM does understand clearly what they have in Watson and what not.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The clever thing in Watson is that it has pretty good Natural Language Processing capabilities. This means input material does not need to be formalized for it, you can just dump it in. (Well, mostly...) It is basically a fast book learner, but cannot exceed what it finds in them. Still very useful, and many people never really exceed that skill level either, but definitely not AI.
I have observed several demos of Watson to expert audiences by now and the word AI was never used by the presenters. IBM is not making any false claims here, at least not to expert audiences.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If watson had enough information about you, like google now, it could probably answer the question.
"Well, you seem to like Alfonse, you posted 'Alfonse pizza is the best' twice after going there, even though you go to Pete's more often. Visits to Petes are usually in response to an invite from friends, which usually ends with your head in a toilet for 5 minutes longer than normal. "
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
You might actually want him to lie on occasion...
Watson, how do we ensure freedom and equality for all people?
People are only truly free from oppression and equal to each other in every way when they've been vaporized into their component atoms. I recommend a nuclear holocaust.