IBM Watson Overview

Watson is a term that is given to an innovative IBM supercomputer that fundamentally comprises artificial intelligence (AI) and classy systematic software to ensure a second-to-none performance as a “question answering” machine. As the supercomputer was exclusively made by Thomas J. Watson (IBM’s founder), suffice is to say the name IBM Watson of the AI-based supercomputer.

For the first time in 2010, IBM Watson came out by prominently attracting a so-called risk causing the audience to blacken out. The question answering supercomputer was designed to achieve the needs and goals of a science fiction future. The multinational technology company IBM aimed to make a display of artificial intelligence (AI) that could interpret human language, go through huge volumes of data, and give answers to questions.

From a marketing point of view, this is a bullion standard for enterprise software. Organizations from different walks of life right away signed up the promise, looking to Watson for answers for the whole lot from insights in their CRM data to determine a treatment for a disease.

The reality, as a matter of fact, is poles apart!

It is not out of the ordinary nowadays for many of us to hear from clients contending botched Watson implementations that the IBM system is literally a front end for IBM Business Services. This gives the meaning that the consultants will come down on the project and strive to utilize a string of APIs to integrate into a range of technologies. The result is an assortment of a broad variety of systems, none of which can actually carry out the job. In certain cases, six-months or a year can pass by with the massive amounts of time and money invested, but no actual results to display.

While speaking with Chamath Palihapitiya, CNBC’s Social Capital CEO and founder, he derided IBM Watson “a joke” and ascribed its mammoth success relatively more to the company’s sales and marketing teams than to its technology.

This is not only the case with enterprise but, in fact, through the inclusive range of Watson’s product line. With this in mind, STAT lately gave a report that the Watson Oncology product is negligible in terms of use to a majority of doctors.

IBM offered sumptuous promises with regards to its Oncology products, supporting with the claims that AI will lend a helping hand to the doctors and give innovative insights and treatments for cancer. However, the matter of fact is that they are as useful as humans are in the concern, and the AI technology has not backed up the delivery of cutting-edge treatments. Some of those using the system who were interviewed by STAT remarked that the pricey AI system typically simply tells them what they know beforehand.

The concern with great assurances

The matter of fact is that IBM Watson lacks the actual cutting-edge technology behind it, but the technology seems as if it is full of riddles: it is a menu of APIs. Designing the ultimate application is resource-intensive, and few ever get to see the value.

It is wrong to assume that it is a petty concern for the industry. Considering IBM’s scale and position in the industry as well as the massive marketing budget spent in the manufacturing of Watson, people have started relating cognitive computing to the Watson offering. When companies become upset with the results the menace is that they will relate that frustration with the underlying technology. The reality is that cognitive search and AI have massive power and efficiencies when carried out the right way.