IBM Downloads More Brains Into Watson

October 17, 2014

IBM is really pushing ways to prove that Watson was a smart invention. Technology Review explains that “EMTech: IBM Tries To Make Watson Smarter” by seeking ways for it to be used commercially. Watson was programmed in a question and answer format for its time on Jeopardy! The format can be expanded and augmented with applications geared towards a specific industry.

IBM has been discussing how its been making Watson smarter for most of 2014 and the article simply reiterates projects in financial, medical, and legal sectors. IBM wants to deploy Watson to automated call centers next.

One new point was mentioned:

“At the EmTech conference, a questioner from USAA pointed out that the system was having some trouble, in part because it would not allow users to ask follow-up questions. Each request was treated as a standalone problem, making Watson awkward to use at times. [Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of the IBM Watson Group] said he would meet with USAA later this week.”

Watson is still not quite human, not that we want it to be. Watson has a pretty good PR team to puff its capabilities up, but the results are still in development.

Whitney Grace, October 17, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under News, Technology

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.