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I have the feeling the reporter doesn't know what they're talking about: "For example, if the Raptors were measuring college basketball prospects, Watson could

by n72 10y ago

I have the feeling the reporter doesn't know what they're talking about: "For example, if the Raptors were measuring college basketball prospects, Watson could quickly crunch the numbers and display a comparison of their stats on shooting, assists, and rebounds." One most assuredly does not need Watson to do this. Moreover, "Compare that to drafts of past years, in which the Raptors would use whiteboards with player stats printed on magnets, and call up statisticians each time they wanted new information" Does not seem it could be remotely true, given... "Even before Watson came along, the Raptors were tech-savvy. They have access to one of the NBA’s leading analytics teams, and have developed a wide range of tools, including a way to use data from the SportVU camera tracking system to model the best moves a player could make."

slg 10y ago
I'm don't think that is necessarily a conflict. The reason sport teams have these analytics teams is to help decide how limited resources should be utilized. Those limited resources include money and draft picks, but it also applies to man hours. Why spend development time to build a digital whiteboard to present that data when it would take mere minutes to print it out and put it on a whiteboard? Why build a front end for the database when you can "call up statisticians" (probably just a DBA running an SQL query) to give you the answer. It is a game of trade offs. If the high tech and more complicated solution takes time to implement, the improvement over the simpler solution needs to be large enough to justify the investment.
Zigurd 10y ago
I suspect the problem is not entirely with the reporter. The reporter is probably paraphrasing a press release describing a really minimal effort to apply Watson to a something that would grab some publicity. IBM and the Raptors' PR people probably put in more work than was done on the implementation. Which is why it sounds like something you could whip up in a spreadsheet. It probably does "display a comparison of their stats on shooting, assists, and rebounds" on a Web page with the Watson logo on it, and the reporter faithfully reported what he saw. Watson is more of IBM's tool for creating the impression that IBM is a technology company and not just a systems integration shop than it is a serious deep learning project. Eventually it will become another tragic chapter among many in the decline of technology at IBM. I predict sometime in the near future, when Apple and Google and Microsoft and others build some real businesses on deep learning systems that there will be a mournful article published about how sad and left behind Watson has become.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  The name might be worth something. Everyone knows Watson due to the Jeopardy stuff. "New from IBM and Amazon, Watson in your home!"* *It's just Alexa with a male voice and some tweaks from IBM.
  - Zigurd 10y ago
    At this point, IBM is the Radio Shack of computing. nobody knows what the brand means anymore.
    - Retra 10y ago
      That's because they're better known as a hardware and systems company, but they're trying to pivot to an analytics and cloud services company.

by n72 10y ago

slg 10y ago

I'm don't think that is necessarily a conflict. The reason sport teams have these analytics teams is to help decide how limited resources should be utilized. Those limited resources include money and draft picks, but it also applies to man hours. Why spend development time to build a digital whiteboard to present that data when it would take mere minutes to print it out and put it on a whiteboard? Why build a front end for the database when you can "call up statisticians" (probably just a DBA running an SQL query) to give you the answer. It is a game of trade offs. If the high tech and more complicated solution takes time to implement, the improvement over the simpler solution needs to be large enough to justify the investment.

Zigurd 10y ago

I suspect the problem is not entirely with the reporter. The reporter is probably paraphrasing a press release describing a really minimal effort to apply Watson to a something that would grab some publicity. IBM and the Raptors' PR people probably put in more work than was done on the implementation. Which is why it sounds like something you could whip up in a spreadsheet. It probably does "display a comparison of their stats on shooting, assists, and rebounds" on a Web page with the Watson logo on it, and the reporter faithfully reported what he saw. Watson is more of IBM's tool for creating the impression that IBM is a technology company and not just a systems integration shop than it is a serious deep learning project. Eventually it will become another tragic chapter among many in the decline of technology at IBM. I predict sometime in the near future, when Apple and Google and Microsoft and others build some real businesses on deep learning systems that there will be a mournful article published about how sad and left behind Watson has become.

cmdrfred 10y ago
The name might be worth something. Everyone knows Watson due to the Jeopardy stuff. "New from IBM and Amazon, Watson in your home!"* *It's just Alexa with a male voice and some tweaks from IBM.
- Zigurd 10y ago
  At this point, IBM is the Radio Shack of computing. nobody knows what the brand means anymore.
  - Retra 10y ago
    That's because they're better known as a hardware and systems company, but they're trying to pivot to an analytics and cloud services company.