IBM Watson: Cruel, Cruel Caveats
November 12, 2016
There’s nothing like a cruel caveat applied to IBM Watson. Navigate to “Cognitive Computing Applications Present New Business Challenges.” These challenges are not “new”; what’s new is that naive smart software licensees are discovering that training software is difficult, time consuming, and expensive. Best of all, the training is not forever. Smart systems need to be retrained because language and data change.
The write up reports that an executive involved in smart software at Rabobank, a Dutch outfit, offered this observation at the World of Watson conference held at the end of October 2016 :
AI is everywhere, and people think it’s so fantastic. And these companies, including IBM, come in and then you go to do a project and see that it’s not really that great yet,” Serrurier Schepper said. “You have to train a model, and it takes time.”
The story continues:
After building a centralized AI unit, teams should look for quick wins and then publicize their success, Serrurier Schepper said. Models may take a long time to train, but once they’re delivering strong results, sharing this with the rest of the company can help build support for future initiatives.
Yep, time. Time is money, which is a statement any bank professional with Excel can understand.
How does one avoid failing? That’s easy. The write up reports:
Choosing the right use cases for cognitive computing applications is also important. There is a general notion that AI software can perform just about any task. And while that may be the ultimate goal of the technology, today’s tools are a ways off from that. Enterprises need to identify business problems where the technology is competent, and that’s not always a simple proposition.
The point is that no matter how generalized the perception that smart software like Watson can be, the licensee has to figure out exactly what problem to attack. The reason is that the time and cost of creating a model and then training the smart software will put the project deep into a swamp of red, mercury tinged muck.
But be prepared to spend money. The write up quotes another Watson aware executive as saying:
“If you get too hung up on ROI, you’ll never do anything.”
I disagree. Those involved in the project may have an opportunity to look for a new job. It’s the time and cost thing that creates these new horizons for some smart software champions.
Stephen E Arnold, November 12, 2016
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