Weekly Watson Watch: Robots Become Socially Adept
September 25, 2015
The Watson promotional campaign is clogging my Overflight alert system. I will try to pick one Watson item from my favorite main frame company each week.
This week’s selection is from MIT Technology Review, whose editors find IBM Watson fascinating. The write up is “IBM Watson to Teach Robots Some Social Skills.” The MIT angle is magnetized by the money spinning Watson’s ability to “better understand and mimic human communication.” The write up focuses on an IBM wizard with the delightful name of Bob High.
The news hook is that an IBM partner used Watson to allow the partner’s robot Nao to speak “with realistic intonation.” The robot was also able to make “appropriate hand gestures during a conversation.”
The article tucks in an interesting comment, which struck me as a bit like Volkswagen’s approach to diesel emissions. Are you ready? Here is the passage I highlighted in a color I call truthful blue:
Speaking with MIT Technology Review after the demo, High admitted that this interaction was prerecorded, because the system doesn’t always work well in noisy environments. But he said the capabilities demonstrated reflected real research.
Ah, a demo. Where’s the beef? The PR hot dog seems to me to have some artificiality within.
I quite like the “real research” phrase. Who wants faux research like the work that creates television shows, flows of PR, and mid tier consultants praising cognitive computing.
I favor the type of research which allows me to buy 100 shares of IBM stock and then watch the value rise. I am not too keen on technology that does not work in a noisy environment. Been in an airport lately? How about under mortar fire? Well, canned responses will work in some cases I assume.
Watson is, as you know, gentle reader, open source, acquired, and home brew technology. Watson is, in my opinion, a good example of how basic search technology is wrapped with numerous other functions in a remarkable series of marketing efforts to generate revenue. We know the IBM Watson marketing people can elicit excitement from big time, “real” journalistic endeavors.
I feel lighthearted this morning. Here are my notes made as I sat on my deck watching the mine drainage stir the yellow green water in the still pond. It is time for a Frostian “you come too”:
- Will a drone equipped with two laser-guided AGM-114 Hellfire missiles experience emotion upon release of the ordinance?
- Will “love” robots incorporate the technology? Will the stop word list contain, “Take out the garbage” with appropriate intonation and gestures?
- Will the technology work in a real world environment like an office? The technology may be useful for some IBM HR applications; for example, a 54 year old employee is RA’d and discusses with a socially adept IBM robot the employee’s impending severance because the employees’ job will be off-shored in four weeks.
Enough old-person humor for this Weekly Watson. For more IBM information, check out Allliance@IBM.
Stephen E Arnold, September 25, 2015
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Weekly Watson Watch: Robots Become Socially Adept : Stephen E. Arnold @ Beyond Search