Watson Weekly: IBM Watson Service for Use in the IBM Cloud: Bluemix Paas, IBM SPSS, Watson Analytics
July 5, 2016
The article on ComputerWorld titled Review: IBM Watson Strikes Again relates the recent expansions of Watson’s cloud service portfolio, who is still most famous for winning on Jeopardy. The article beings by evoking that event from 2011, which actually only reveals a small corner of Watson’s functions. The article mentions that to win Jeopardy, Watson basically only needed to absorb Wikipedia, since 95% of the answers are article titles. New services for use in the IBM Cloud include the Bluemix Paas, IBM SPSS, and Predictive Analytics. Among the Bluemix services is this gem,
“Personality Insights derives insights from transactional and social media data…to identify psychological traits, which it returns as a tree of characteristics in JSON format. Relationship Extraction parses sentences into their components and detects relationships between the components (parts of speech and functions) through contextual analysis. The Personality Insights API is documented for Curl, Node, and Java; the demo for the API analyzes the tweets of Oprah, Lady Gaga, and King James as well as several textual passages.”
Bluemix also consists of AlchemyAPI for ftext and image content reading, Concept Expansion and Concept Insights, which offers text analysis and linking of concepts to Wikipedia topics. The article is less kind to Watson Analytics, a Web app for data analysis with ML, which the article claims “tries too hard” and is too distracting for data scientists.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Supercomputers Have Individual Personalities
July 1, 2016
Supercomputers like Watson are more than a novelty. They were built to be another tool for humans, rather than replacing humans all together or so reads some comments from Watson’s chief technology officer Rob High. High was a keynote speaker at the Nvidia GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. The Inquirer shares the details in “Nvidia GTC: Why IBM Watson Dances Gangam Style And Sings Like Taylor Swift.”
At the conference, High said that he did not want his computer to take over his thinking, instead he wanted the computer to do his research for him. Research and keeping up with the latest trends in any industry consumes A LOT of time and a supercomputer could potentially eliminate some of the hassle. This requires that supercomputers become more human:
“This leads on to the fact that the way we interact with computers needs to change. High believes that cognitive computers need four skills – to learn, to express themselves with human-style interaction, to provide expertise, and to continue to evolve – all at scale. People who claim not to be tech savvy, he explained, tend to be intimidated by the way we currently interact with computers, pushing the need for a further ‘humanising’ of the process.”
In order to humanize robots, what is taking place is them learning how to be human. A few robots have been programmed with Watson as their main processor and they can interact with humans. By interacting with humans, the robots pick up on human spoken language as well as body language and vocal tone. It allows them to learn how to not be human, but rather the best “artificial servant it can be”.
Robots and supercomputers are tools that can ease a person’s job, but the fact still remains that in some industries they can also replace human labor.
Whitney Grace, July 1, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
IBM Cloud Powers Comic-Con Channel
June 30, 2016
The San Diego Comic-Con is the biggest geek and pop culture convention in the country and it needs to be experienced to be believed. Every year the San Diego Comic-Con gets bigger and more complex as attendees and the guests demand more from the purveyors. If you are at Comic-Con, then you need to think big. Thinking big requires thinking differently, which is why it would seem “IBM And Comic-Con HQ Make Strange Bedfellows” says Fortune.
IBM announced that they have teamed with Lionsgate to run a Comic-Con HQ video channeled powered by IBM’s cloud. The on-demand channel will premiere during 2016’s Comic-Con. Comic-con attendees and those unfortunate not to purchase a ticket have demanded video streaming services for years, practically ever since it became possible. Due to copyright as well as how to charge attendees for the service have kept video on-demand on the back burner, but now it is going to happen and it is going to be a challenge.
Video streaming is:
“Video is a demanding application for cloud computing. Storing and shipping massive video files, often shot in ultra-high-definition 4k format, is a useful testbed to show off cloud services.”
Anything new related to Comic-Con always proves to be a hassle and troublesome. One of the cases in point is when the SDCC launched its digital waiting room to purchase tickets and had way more traffic than their servers could handle. The end result was a lot of angry fans unable to buy tickets. Another challenge was handling the massive crowds that started flocking to the convention halls around the mid-2000s (attendance swelled around 2011 with the Twilight movies).
Anything that will improve the Comic-Con experience and even allow non-attendees a taste of the magical July event would be welcome.
Whitney Grace, June 30, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Weakly Watson: Real Journalists May Be Remaindered
June 25, 2016
That IBM Watson is a versatile confection. I read “IBM’s Watson Tries Its Hand at Editing a Magazine.” Not only does software have a hand, the software is androgynous. In IBM’s quest for revenue and perceived leadership in smart software, the company has targeted journalism as a field of dreams.
The write up reports:
The Drum, a marketing site and publication, apparently allowed Watson to edit the latest issue of its magazine, effectively benching the human editor for an AI (at least in some respects).
I learned:
IBM’s David Kenny commented: “Right now AI is more about people querying machines. My dream is that Watson will ask us questions, giving computers abductive rather than deductive reasoning skills. Abductive reasoning will lead to conversation and dialogue with humans. “And that in turn will lead to more creative thinking, because machine learning means cognitive computing systems will become smarter over time on their own. We’re on that path now, but much work is ahead of us.”
“Abductive” means, I think, moving from an observation via a training set to a theory which accounts for the observation. I recall that Autonomy’s digital reasoning engine used a somewhat similar method in — when was it — about 1996.
Now about those revenues? Would IBM Watson evidence snappier performance if it were running on the world’s fastest supercomputers from China? Just asking. There are those computational issues and, in addition, the need for human ministration of the IBM Watson system.
Stephen E Arnold, June 25, 2015
IBM Watson: Me Too, Me Too with Olli Smart Transport
June 21, 2016
I read “IBM’s Watson AI Powers IoT Services In Self-Driven Mini Bus.” Lots of outfits are pushing the self driving vehicle. Why is the news that IBM has Olli, a smart bus thing not too surprising? IBM Watson can do anything those upstarts can do, that’s why. IBM is the cognitive king.
The write up states:
IBM today announced that Watson, its AI platform, will be powering a range of services in a new self-driving bus concept named Olli. Designed by Local Motors, Olli is electric-powered, caries up to 12 people and will start operating in Washington DC…
Yep, DC, the city which has distinguished itself with excellent management of its existing subway system. My recollection is that riders have an opportunity to be trapped underground when parts of the electrical subsystem burst into flames. Exciting.
Olli will be above ground. That’s one Metro problem solved. The write up asserts:
Local Motor’s Olli will be the world’s first self-driven public transportation vehicle and will benefit from four APIs that will come with Watson, namely Speech to Text, Natural Language Classifier, Entity Extraction and Text to Speech. Olli will be riddled with a number of Watson-enabled sensors using which it will be able to perform a range of functions like interacting with commuters about routes and destinations as well as analyzing transportation data. It will also be able to help passengers with information about local landmarks and will also offer suggestions on nearby restaurants…
Sounds great, but then so did the Metro.
Stephen E Arnold, June 21, 2016
IBM Watson: Factoids and Perfect Haikus
June 18, 2016
I read “AI Will “Help Humans Make Better Decisions” Says IBM Watson General Manager.” I like it when smart software improves human decision making. Wait. If the software were able to help humans, wouldn’t IBM be the dominant company in artificial intelligence. Amazon, Facebook, Google, and the others in the AI game would be sucking wind and reporting financial headwinds? Hmmm. IBM seems to be the leader in AI talk and a bit of a laggard in the revenues department.
Here’s a factoid:
Watson can understand data at astonishing speeds and volumes. In fact, it reads 800 million pages per second. It can reason to form hypotheses, make considered arguments and prioritize recommendations to help humans make decisions.
Now that is an impressive number. I want to ask, “What is a page?” and “What happens when a page consists of an image and a table of data?” 800 million. Zippy indeed. Compared to what and at what cost for computing infrastructure?
And again with the factoid:
[IBM Watson] programmers trained InkWell with Watson’s Tone Analyzer and Personality Insights to analyze the words for emotion, word selection, personality and tone. The result is a perfect haiku that conveys emotion and tone, demonstrating how a cognitive system can understand language beyond statistics.
Does IBM Watson’s perfect haiku take this form?
What about the work of Basho, Buson, Shiki, and Issa. Consider this translation of Issa’s haiku:
The wren
Earns his living
Noiselessly.
Watson should be, in my opinion, able to answer the question, “How does IBM grow its revenues?” Issa might think of a run away horse. Is that whirring I hear the sound of Issa’s ducks quacking. Noiselessly, not likely. Weakly sounds the IBM marketing howls.
Stephen E Arnold, June 18, 2016
Weakly Watson: A Smart Hat
June 14, 2016
I am not making this up. Navigate to “A Dad Made a Real-Life ‘Harry Potter’ Sorting Hat Using IBM’s Watson — Here’s How It Works.” Lucky kids. I bet everyone in their school understands the importance of IBM Watson. And the fashion. Stellar. I would reproduce a photo of the IBM Watson hat, but I am fearful that [a] a legal eagle would swoop upon me and [b] my gentle readers would think I photoshopped the image.
According to the write up:
The hat works simply enough. You place it on your head (that part is actually for fun, you could just talk to it) and tell the sorting hat a few things about yourself so it can sort you appropriately.
And Watson:
But running on the Natural Language Classifyer [sic] language alone would have forced users to describe themselves over written text. And we all know that’s not how the real sorting hat works! So Anderson also used Watson’s Speech to Text feature so you can speak to the hat.
You will find more details at this link. I want to reiterate that I am quite impressed. The lucky children will be the talk of anyone who sees them wearing this gizmo.
IBM Watson. More than recipes.
Stephen E Arnold, June 14, 2016
The Unknown Future of Google Cloud Platform
June 10, 2016
While many may have the perception Google dominates in many business sectors, a recent graph published shows a different story when it comes to cloud computing. Datamation released a story, Why Google Will Dominate Cloud Computing, which shows Google’s position in fourth. Amazon, Microsoft and IBM are above the search giant in cloud infrastructure services when looking at the fourth quarter market share and revenue growth for 2015. The article explains why Google appears to be struggling,
“Yet as impressive as its tech prowess is, GCP’s ability to cater to the prosaic needs of enterprise cloud customers has been limited, even fumbling. Google has always focused more on selling its own services rather than hosting legacy applications, but these legacy apps are the engine that drives business. Remarkably, GCP customers don’t get support for Oracle software, as they do on Amazon Web Services. Alas, catering to the needs of enterprise clients isn’t about deep genius – it’s about working with others. GCP has been like the high school student with straight A’s and perfect SAT scores that somehow doesn’t have too many friends.”
Despite the current situation, the article hypothesizes Google Cloud Platform may have an edge in the long-term. This is quite a bold prediction. We wonder if Datamation may approach the goog to sell some ads. Probably not, as real journalists do not seek money, right?
Megan Feil, June 10, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Weakly Watson: Unusual Watson Applications
June 9, 2016
The change in leadership at IBM Watson is a bit like the weather. One does not know how the weekend will turn out. I read “5 Unusual Things You Can Do with IBM’s Watson.” I must admit that I have missed the full page ads with weird made up chemical symbols suggesting Watson’s combinatorial magic. I also have missed the “Watson cures cancer” write ups. I always wonder how that project is coming along.
In the unusual write up, I noted the five things; to wit:
- Create a “custom” order for granola.
- Shop for clothes.
- Find a bottle of wine. [Shades of Endeca’s long standing example!]
- Ask health questions. [When I worked at Ziff in the 1990s, we had a health reference center which performed the same trick. Libraries loved the system. Doctors, not so much.]
- Check into a Hilton and ask about bus routes. [Uber, anyone?]
My hunch is that IBM wants to make darned certain it is in the race for smart software. Okay, IBM Watson with its open source technology, home brew scripts, and acquired technology is really big in artificial intelligence. I give up already.
Custom granola? A slam dunk. Help me shop for clothes? My wife may have some thoughts about that. These five items comprise compelling use cases for someone I assume. Oh, when I check into a hotel, I think Uber, not bus routes. Ever try to take a bus in Xian, China?
Stephen E Arnold, June 3, 2016
Watson Does Cyber Security
May 10, 2016
I heard a rumor that Palantir Technologies has turned down the volume on its cybersecurity initiative. I was interested to learn that IBM is jumping into this niche following the lead of its four star general Thomas “Weakly” Watson.
According to “IBM’s Watson Is Going to Cybersecurity School,” General Watson “announced a new year-long research project through which it will collaborate with eight universities to help train its Watson artificial-intelligence system to tackle cybercrime.”
A number of capable outfits are attacking this market sector. Instead of buying a high octane outfit, I learned:
This fall, it will begin working with students at universities including California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, Penn State, MIT, New York University and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County along with Canada’s universities of New Brunswick, Ottawa and Waterloo.
Never give up. Forward, march.
Stephen E Arnold, May 10, 2016
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