This doesn't at all surprise me. I used to work at Anderson in the Leukemia department, brought on to analyze their "big data." They wanted to know which cell

This doesn't at all surprise me. I used to work at Anderson in the Leukemia department, brought on to analyze their "big data." They wanted to know which cells were indicative of relapse but were only able to provide data on two patients who each received different treatments. Despite my best efforts, I could not convince the MDs who run the show to obtain more (and better) data to even begin to apply machine learning. They had this intrenched opinion that math was something that got sprinkled over your data and turned rubbish into Science papers. I wouldn't be surprised if IBM encountered the same problem. Moreover, this whole story is in line with my sense of the institutional culture. There is a lot of me-too science that goes on there, repeating better work at more prestigious universities. I bet when my bosses heard the pitch from IBM, they thought "this is my chance to compete with Stanford." However, no thought was given to the data that would feed into this system as evidenced by the changes of scope and infrastructure.