For everybody who has not seen this major step in AI technology: Here you go! A machine beating two of Jeopardy’s greatest champions.
Where did Watson come from?
There it was, suddenly. But of course, Watson needed time to develop and to prepare for its public performance. Watson was born five years before its TV appearance when IBM was searching for the next “Grand Challenge”. Grand Challenges projects are run periodically by IBM, challenging a machine against a human. The aim is no bottom-line contribution, but rather creating some buzz on the market.
One of the biggest challenges was mastering the complexity of natural language. “A lot has to do with ambiguity or things being ill-defined”, says Dr Gerald Tesauro, a principal research staff member at IBM’s TJ Watson Research Center. Playing Jeopardy, Watson needed to deal with puns, double meanings and other wordplays.
After Watson was finally developed to the stage, that their developers believed in the challenge they took, Watson got trained to play 100 games against past winners to improve its chances to win.
And then: Win for Watson!
But, what has Watson been up since winning Jeopardy?
Watson revolutionized cognitive and programmable computing. Each day, it is processing more than 2.5 billion gigabytes of data. By simulating human thoughts further improving through machine learning, Watson is reducing the biases and errors in decision making. While Watson was running on a set of servers that could fill the size of a huge bedroom during the Jeopardy game, Watson is nowadays living in the IBM Cloud.
Back then, after winning Jeopardy, the first real-world application of Watson was announced immediately: Healthcare. IBM cooperated with several companies and universities to develop Watson technology to assist physicians in deciding on treatment. Watson Oncology, commercialized in February 2013, assisted cancer diagnosis and treatment. Nowadays Watson is integrated into a wide range of decision making in the clinical environment, identifying several illnesses, thus enriching human capabilities.
2016, Watson has been incorporated into about 17 industries, like retail, music, law, hotel business and even cooking. Seems like Watson has been growing up and can take decisions itself. But that’s not yet the case. Nwuke, an IBM Watson ecosystem manager, says: “Our perspective is that you can’t take the humanity out of it. There are a ton of opportunities that can be met by [technology]. There are a ton of challenges that can be overcome by it. But, at the end of the day, it is that partnership between man and machine that matters most.”
The Future of Watson – what do you think?
Watson’s developers had no idea about the scope of its commercialization. Now it’s a realistic application operating in various industries – a real game-changer. But what about the future? What do you think about Watson? Does IBM’s technology have the potential to further conquer or even disrupt? Or did Watson experience its magic moment already?
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P18EdAKuC1U
Try Watson Visual Recognition yourself: https://www.ibm.com/watson/services/visual-recognition/demo/#demo
Hi Maren,
thanks for sharing your perspective on IBM’s Watson Technology. I watched the video and found it very entertaining and impressing at the same time. What I was asking myself is the question, if this was even possible in 2011, where is Watson Technology right now in terms of development and usage? I mean since then 8 years have passed and I think we are now moving into the direction that AI has the potential towards solving real-world problems. Gaining interest in that topic, I stumbled across an article on how Korean Air is using Watson to search vast amounts of data to improve operational efficiency and on-time performance https://www.ibm.com/watson/stories/airlines-with-watson/. I think it is an interesting read in terms of where Watson is right now and what’s possible.
Hi Eva,
Thanks for your interest and for adding one of today’s impressive use cases of Watson! It is indeed fascinating what the technology is capable today when used in the right way and with the right people implementing. As IBM representatives say themselves, it is not just about Watson conquering the world itself, it is about the cooperation with us humans. That’s why I found it very interesting to think about the future of Watson and other AI technologies.
Thanks again for your input!
Cheers,
Maren