6 ms·

I was at the CogX artificial intelligence summit in London a couple of weeks ago, and IBM were there in full force. I made several rounds around all of the sta

by throwaway111991 9y ago

I was at the CogX artificial intelligence summit in London a couple of weeks ago, and IBM were there in full force. I made several rounds around all of the stalls, and sat at the bar for a couple of hours with friends, and the whole time I could see the IBM stall, with 4-5 people there, WATSON plastered everywhere and nobody talking to them. So I went over. I got talking to one of their technical people there, I am highly experienced in Deep Learning so I started talking about Neural Nets, and he went blank, and admitted he didn't know much about that. I inquired about WATSON's technology and he couldn't answer telling me he didn't know. I asked about the main use cases, and what makes WATSONs offering better than Deep Learning, he couldn't answer, or even compare on basic levels. I asked him "What are the coolest uses of WATSON you've seen" and he immediatly went into a canned response about WATSON diagnosing cancer (a project I had seen and was familiar with) we spoke a few minutes on that, and I asked what other cool projects WATSON had been used on ... he had nothing, and I mean literally nothing. very disappointing

abtinf 9y ago
I work in developer advocacy at IBM. If you would like to follow-up about your experience or to get connected with the right folks to answer you questions, please feel free to reach out to me.
- voodooranger 9y ago
  Watson, is that you?
- komali2 9y ago
  These are parodies, right?
perseusprime11 9y ago
The real problem is that Everybody is afraid to share data with them because they know Watson will become better at the expense of company's business model.
- catmanjan 9y ago
  I agree, IBM would never send anyone who actually knows anything to these events. The developers are locked away for several good (for IBM) reasons...
- abtinf 9y ago
  Disclosure: I work in developer advocacy at IBM. The issue of data privacy and protection is complex. IBM provides explanations and opt-outs in many of the Watson services. For example, you can set the X-Watson-Learning-Opt-Out header on speech-to-text calls to prevent retention and use of your data for learning. [1] [1] https://www.ibm.com/watson/developercloud/doc/speech-to-text/faq.html https://www.ibm.com/watson/developercloud/doc/speech-to-text...
  - jclulow 9y ago
    Why not an X-Watson-Retention-Opt-In header?
  - perseusprime11 9y ago
    Are you saying that your model does not improve from learning from customer's data? If the answer is yes, then what prevents you from deploying the model at a customer's competitor?
_delirium 9y ago
To be honest, if my choice is "I am highly experienced in Deep Learning so I started talking about Neural Nets" and "IBM Watson representative", I start wondering whether it's possible for the whole building to just go up in flames.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bpodgursky 9y ago
To be fair, the "technical" person at a conference does not mean "engineer". It's like a quarter tier past pure-salesperson. Obviously not an impressive showing overall, but I don't think it should be used as a judge of their technical talent.
- throwaway111991 9y ago
  I didn't expect a discourse on topology, but Compare your X to Y, and knowing more than 1 use case is basic, basic, sales stuff
  - salesguy222 9y ago
    Most sales people at large corporations don't even know how to put together a quote or speak about the product they sell. You are lucky if they just book meetings and get out of the way of the sales engineer.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    Seems like IBM latest sales strategy is I B M and stickers.
- pdkl95 9y ago
  I understand that the people sent to a conference may not be highly knowledgeable about some of the companies products. However, if the company isn't going to at least train them for easy questions like why anyone should buy the product featured prominently in the booth's advertisements, then what was the point in renting vendor space? [1] At a minimum, give them a handbook with the official answers for common questions.
  - throwaway91111 9y ago
    Yea, watson's distinguishing features can't be "magic beans".
jimmaswell 9y ago
Kind of reminds me of these frustrating anti-nuclear advocates that set up a table with some posters at my old college one day. They couldn't give me any real answers why I should support solar wind and hydro over nuclear besides nuclear being "old technology". They had no response to the fact that this state isn't ideal for large scale use of any of the green alternatives or that much more deaths directly result from solar panel installation accidents alone than nuclear as a whole. They couldn't tell me specifically what was supposedly dangerous about current waste storage techniques. The worst part was I googled the organization they were there on behalf of and right on their webpage was an explanation of the failure of nuclear plants in the state to stay profitable (I forget why but it seems really odd since you get so much power from them). I guess they cared more about getting more mileage for less effort dishonestly swaying the local types who are automatically turned off by "radiation" and big industrial buildings. Was that event not geared towards technical people overall or was that stand an exception?
- Spooky23 9y ago
  It sounds like you trolled some kids passionate about a subject to argue for a technology and industry that you don't really understand. Were you prepared to compare the plight of the solar installers who fall off of roofs and get injured to the construction workers injured on the job during various nuclear plant construction projects? Did you count the various victims at Chernobyl? (Epidemiologists project at least 4,000 deaths) Were you ready to justify why states like New York needs to subsidize nuclear plants with $500M in direct savings because they are not economically viable to operate anymore? In your case, those kids were being nice.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    Why "trolled"? Those are all reasonable questions to ask. This advocacy has real world consequences.
    - lightbyte 9y ago
      It's "trolled" because the OP clearly did not actually understand what he was trying to argue for. He was just going for "gotcha" responses.
sjg007 9y ago
Is it slot filling then to find treatments? I saw the 60minutes episode about how they have it read the literature.
brightball 9y ago
A couple of psychologist made an algorithm on punch cards to diagnose stomach cancer in the 1960s more accurately than doctors. Grab a copy of The Undoing Project.

abtinf 9y ago

I work in developer advocacy at IBM. If you would like to follow-up about your experience or to get connected with the right folks to answer you questions, please feel free to reach out to me.

voodooranger 9y ago
Watson, is that you?
komali2 9y ago
These are parodies, right?

perseusprime11 9y ago

The real problem is that Everybody is afraid to share data with them because they know Watson will become better at the expense of company's business model.

catmanjan 9y ago
I agree, IBM would never send anyone who actually knows anything to these events. The developers are locked away for several good (for IBM) reasons...
abtinf 9y ago
Disclosure: I work in developer advocacy at IBM. The issue of data privacy and protection is complex. IBM provides explanations and opt-outs in many of the Watson services. For example, you can set the X-Watson-Learning-Opt-Out header on speech-to-text calls to prevent retention and use of your data for learning. [1] [1] https://www.ibm.com/watson/developercloud/doc/speech-to-text/faq.html https://www.ibm.com/watson/developercloud/doc/speech-to-text...
- jclulow 9y ago
  Why not an X-Watson-Retention-Opt-In header?
- perseusprime11 9y ago
  Are you saying that your model does not improve from learning from customer's data? If the answer is yes, then what prevents you from deploying the model at a customer's competitor?

_delirium 9y ago

To be honest, if my choice is "I am highly experienced in Deep Learning so I started talking about Neural Nets" and "IBM Watson representative", I start wondering whether it's possible for the whole building to just go up in flames.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

bpodgursky 9y ago

To be fair, the "technical" person at a conference does not mean "engineer". It's like a quarter tier past pure-salesperson. Obviously not an impressive showing overall, but I don't think it should be used as a judge of their technical talent.

throwaway111991 9y ago
I didn't expect a discourse on topology, but Compare your X to Y, and knowing more than 1 use case is basic, basic, sales stuff
- salesguy222 9y ago
  Most sales people at large corporations don't even know how to put together a quote or speak about the product they sell. You are lucky if they just book meetings and get out of the way of the sales engineer.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  Seems like IBM latest sales strategy is I B M and stickers.
pdkl95 9y ago
I understand that the people sent to a conference may not be highly knowledgeable about some of the companies products. However, if the company isn't going to at least train them for easy questions like why anyone should buy the product featured prominently in the booth's advertisements, then what was the point in renting vendor space? [1] At a minimum, give them a handbook with the official answers for common questions.
- throwaway91111 9y ago
  Yea, watson's distinguishing features can't be "magic beans".

jimmaswell 9y ago

Kind of reminds me of these frustrating anti-nuclear advocates that set up a table with some posters at my old college one day. They couldn't give me any real answers why I should support solar wind and hydro over nuclear besides nuclear being "old technology". They had no response to the fact that this state isn't ideal for large scale use of any of the green alternatives or that much more deaths directly result from solar panel installation accidents alone than nuclear as a whole. They couldn't tell me specifically what was supposedly dangerous about current waste storage techniques. The worst part was I googled the organization they were there on behalf of and right on their webpage was an explanation of the failure of nuclear plants in the state to stay profitable (I forget why but it seems really odd since you get so much power from them). I guess they cared more about getting more mileage for less effort dishonestly swaying the local types who are automatically turned off by "radiation" and big industrial buildings. Was that event not geared towards technical people overall or was that stand an exception?

Spooky23 9y ago
It sounds like you trolled some kids passionate about a subject to argue for a technology and industry that you don't really understand. Were you prepared to compare the plight of the solar installers who fall off of roofs and get injured to the construction workers injured on the job during various nuclear plant construction projects? Did you count the various victims at Chernobyl? (Epidemiologists project at least 4,000 deaths) Were you ready to justify why states like New York needs to subsidize nuclear plants with $500M in direct savings because they are not economically viable to operate anymore? In your case, those kids were being nice.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  Why "trolled"? Those are all reasonable questions to ask. This advocacy has real world consequences.
  - lightbyte 9y ago
    It's "trolled" because the OP clearly did not actually understand what he was trying to argue for. He was just going for "gotcha" responses.

sjg007 9y ago

Is it slot filling then to find treatments? I saw the 60minutes episode about how they have it read the literature.

brightball 9y ago

A couple of psychologist made an algorithm on punch cards to diagnose stomach cancer in the 1960s more accurately than doctors. Grab a copy of The Undoing Project.