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TLDR: Watson has been trained for 6 years to build a knowledge base about 7 types of cancer; therapy recommendations are entered by experts from one top US hosp

TLDR: Watson has been trained for 6 years to build a knowledge base about 7 types of cancer; therapy recommendations are entered by experts from one top US hospital. Looks to me like a giant pattern recognition system. The best assessment I found in the article: > He said later that the background information Watson provided, including medical journal articles, was helpful, giving him more confidence that using a specific chemotherapy was a sound idea. But the system did not directly help him make that decision, nor did it tell him anything he didn’t already know.

bane 9y ago
Yay, and now we're back at expert systems again. If we had known the AI winter would have been the dark ages and we'd have to reboot civilization again maybe we would have kept some fires on for warmth.
carlmr 9y ago
>Looks to me like a giant pattern recognition system. Pretty much all attempts at AI are pattern recognition systems. I think the AI hype will die down a bit, after we see more of the high profile AI programs underdelivering on marketing's promises. But we'll get some gems that do deliver something useful. I just guess IBM bit off more than they can chew on this one. It's an old, slow, uninnovative company, trying to do what the cool kids are doing by putting all of their money on it.
- romaniv 9y ago
  >Pretty much all attempts at AI are pattern recognition systems. All attempts in modern AI. Most interesting research from the 60s and 80s wasn't based on pattern recognition.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  > Pretty much all attempts at AI are pattern recognition systems Pattern recognition is a fundamental component of intelligence, but not all attempts at AI are based on supervised learning (ie "simple" pattern recognition).
fractallyte 9y ago
More like an expert system - the kind that was around in the 1980s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_system

bane 9y ago

Yay, and now we're back at expert systems again. If we had known the AI winter would have been the dark ages and we'd have to reboot civilization again maybe we would have kept some fires on for warmth.

carlmr 9y ago

>Looks to me like a giant pattern recognition system. Pretty much all attempts at AI are pattern recognition systems. I think the AI hype will die down a bit, after we see more of the high profile AI programs underdelivering on marketing's promises. But we'll get some gems that do deliver something useful. I just guess IBM bit off more than they can chew on this one. It's an old, slow, uninnovative company, trying to do what the cool kids are doing by putting all of their money on it.

romaniv 9y ago
>Pretty much all attempts at AI are pattern recognition systems. All attempts in modern AI. Most interesting research from the 60s and 80s wasn't based on pattern recognition.
danmaz74 9y ago
> Pretty much all attempts at AI are pattern recognition systems Pattern recognition is a fundamental component of intelligence, but not all attempts at AI are based on supervised learning (ie "simple" pattern recognition).

fractallyte 9y ago

More like an expert system - the kind that was around in the 1980s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_system