IBM Flogs Watson as a Lawyer and a Doctor
January 30, 2015
After the disappointing and somewhat negative IBM financial reports, the Watson PR machine has lurched into action. Watson, as you may know, is the next big thing in content processing. Lucene plus home brew code converts search into an artificial intelligence powerhouse. Well, that’s what the Watson cheerleaders want me to believe. I wonder if cheerleading correlates with making sales of more than $1 billion in the next quarter or two or three or four or five.
I read two news items. One is indicative of the use of Watson on a bounded content set, not the big, wide, wonderful world of real time data flows. The other is somewhat troubling but not particularly surprising.
To business.
IBM Watson is now a lawyer. Navigate to “Meet Ross, the IBM Watson-Powered Lawyer.” The idea is that systems from LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters are not what lawyers or the thrifty legal searcher wants. Nope, Watson converts to a lawyer more easily than a graduate of a third tier law school chases accident victims. According to the write up:
University of Toronto team launches a cognitive computing application that helps lawyers conduct world-class case research.
If I understand the write up, Watson is a search system equipped with the magical powers that allowed the machine and software to win a TV game show. Is post production allowed in the court room? I know that post plays a part in prime time TV. Just asking.
A couple of thoughts. The current line up of legal research systems are struggling to keep revenues and make profits. The reason for the squeeze is that law firms are having some difficulty returning to the salad days of the LingTemcoVought era. Lawyers are getting fired. Lawyers are suing law schools with allegations of false advertising about the employment picture for the newly minted JDs. Lawyers are becoming human resource, public relations, and school counselors. Others are just quitting. I know one Duke Law lawyer who has worked at several of the world’s most highly regarded law firms. Know what the Duke Law degree is doing for money? Running a health club. Interesting development for those embarking on a l;aw degree.
Will Watson generate significant revenue and a profit from its legal research prowess? The answer, in my opinion, is, “No.” What is going to happen is that efficacy of Watson’s usefulness on a bounded set of legal content can be compared to the outputs from the smart system offered by Thomson Reuters and the decidedly less smart system from LexisNexis. For an academic, this comparison will be an endless source of reputational zoomitude. For the person needing legal advice, hire an attorney. These folks advertise on TV now and offer 24×7 hotlines and toll free numbers.
The second item casts a shadow over my skeptical and extremely tiny intellectual capability. Navigate to to “This Medical Supercomputer Isn’t a Pacemaker, IBM Tells Congress.” Excluding classified and closed hearings about next generation intelligence systems, this may be the first time a Lucene recycler is pitching Congress about search and retrieval. The write up says:
The effort to protect decision support tools like Watson from Food and Drug Administration regulation is part of a proposal by the Republican chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michigan’s Fred Upton. Called the 21st Century Cures initiative, it’s a major overhaul in the pharmaceutical and medical-device world, and the possibility of its passage is boosted by Republican control of both chambers of Congress. Upton’s bill would give the FDA two years to come up with a verification process for what it calls “medical software.” Such programs wouldn’t require the strict approval process faced by makers of medical devices like heart stents. Another set of products defined as “health software” wouldn’t require FDA oversight at all.
I think an infusion of US government money will provide some revenue to the game show winner. Go for it. Remember I used to work at Halliburton Nuclear and Booz, Allen & Hamilton. But in terms of utility I think that if the Golden Fleece Award were still around, Watson might get a quick look by the 20 somethings filtering the government funding of interesting projects.
Net net: Watson is going to have to vie with HP Autonomy for the billions in revenue from their content processing technologies. Perhaps IBM should take a closer look at i2 and Cybertap? Those IBM owned content processing systems may deliver more value than the keyword centric, super smart Watson system. Just a suggestion from rural Kentucky.
The gray side of the cloud is that IBM may actually get government money. Will Watson bond with Mr. Obama’s health programs? That is an exciting notion.
Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2015
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
