Now Watson Wants to Be a Judge

December 27, 2016

IBM has deployed Watson in many fields, including the culinary arts, sports, and medicine.  The big data supercomputer can be used in any field or industry that creates a lot of data.  Watson, in turn, will digest the data, and depending on the algorithms spit out results.  Now IBM wants Watson to take on the daunting task of judging, says The Drum in “Can Watson Pick A Cannes Lion Winner?  IBM’s Cognitive System Tries Its Arm At Judging Awards.”

According to the article, judging is a cognitive process and requires special algorithms, not the mention the bias of certain judges.  In other words, it should be right up Watson’s alley (perhaps the results will be less subjective as well).  The Drum decided to put Watson to the ultimate creative test and fed Watson thousands of previous Cannes films.  Then Watson predicted who would win the Cannes Film Festival in the Outdoor category this year.

This could change the way contests are judged:

The Drum’s magazine editor Thomas O’Neill added: “This is an experiment that could massively disrupt the awards industry. We have the potential here of AI being able to identify an award winning ad from a loser before you’ve even bothered splashing out on the entry fee. We’re looking forward to seeing whether it proves as accurate in reality as it did in training.

I would really like to see this applied to the Academy Awards that are often criticized for their lack of diversity and consisting of older, white men.  It would be great to see if Watson would yield different results that what the Academy actually selects.

Whitney Grace, December 27, 2016

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