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Watson isn't what investors and the general public thinks it is. It's now more or less some classifier/machine learning as a service plus a dev integration team

by chomp 8y ago

Watson isn't what investors and the general public thinks it is. It's now more or less some classifier/machine learning as a service plus a dev integration team you can hire to pull it into your codebase (which by the way, is lots of $$$) It is not difficult for anyone on HN to spend a weekend, read a machine learning book, and replicate most of Watson's functionality. It's IBM marketing at it's finest.

whiddershins 8y ago
I don’t know if what you are saying is true. I do know that in the past, every time I try to corroborate a similar statement made in a similar tone I end up realizing the commenter was presenting a very narrow and biased, inaccurate, and occasionally slanderous view. So I don’t invest that time and energy anymore. Life is finite.
SkyPuncher 8y ago
> It is not difficult for anyone on HN to spend a weekend, read a machine learning book, and replicate most of Watson's functionality Yea.... I'm sure that's exactly how it is.
- Arnavion 8y ago
  Reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678501
  - est 8y ago
    reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537246 It's a "china" grade replica based on Django, from the commit message it's done alone by some not talented dude, cost far less than 6 months.
jacquesm 8y ago
Watson is a term that is now so overloaded with hype that I tend to ignore it. It's worse than AI.
webaholic 8y ago
you are full of it. Are you sure you can replicate beating world class players on jeopardy in a weekend?
- dudus 8y ago
  But that's not Watson is and I think this is his point. Sure they had a great model and data to solve that problem. But this doesn't scale automatically for other use cases. You'd have to create a model for your use case and find training data. Tensorflow might offer better tools for that for free than the ones being shipped with Watson.
- gojomo 8y ago
  While parent post is full-of-it on the general question of replicating Watson's full bag-of-techniques against client problems in a weekend, I believe the Watson Jeopardy victory was far less impressive than it seemed. It's a very-constrained domain, and the challenge Watson won has never been opened to scrappy teams other than IBM. I wrote up my doubts way back in 2011: https://memesteading.com/2011/02/16/ibm-watson-overprovisioned-big-iron/ https://memesteading.com/2011/02/16/ibm-watson-overprovision... Here in 2018, I suspect a clever focused team could make a MacBook, with current dumps of Wikipedia/Wikidata and a few other key reference materials, competitive in most Jeopardy matches in a week or two. And, with 6 months to a year, as dominant as "Watson" was against the Jeopardy champs.
  - dmreedy 8y ago
    I've had the pleasure of interacting with the codebase that played Jeopardy! and from where I stand, it's still one of the most impressive and beautifully-orchestrated systems I've ever seen. You are correct in your write-up though. Wikipedia titles are super helpful, where they exist.
  - goatlover 8y ago
    > And, with 6 months to a year, as dominant as "Watson" was against the Jeopardy champs. Was Watson dominant because it had a buzzer advantage, or because it could answer the questions better? I recall the other two guys furiously trying to hit the button on different occasions and sighing when Watson beat them out yet again. Thing is we don't know that Watson was better at answering the questions, only that it was better in the Jeopardy game play the way things were setup.
RobLach 8y ago
You should do that then. After you’re done you can staff up 400 sales people at $120000 salaries to snatch one of IBM’s clients to a $60m contract and make a cool $10m+ profit.
- ddmma 8y ago
  Worked in a similiar setup as client of IBM and can confirm what you mentioned, where they tend sell consultancy on some ‘enterprise’ functionality that is already taken over by open source or better services like offered by Azure or AWS
dang 8y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The i-could-do-this-in-a-weekend trope is the mother of shallow dismissals. Please don't post like that here.

by chomp 8y ago

whiddershins 8y ago

I don’t know if what you are saying is true. I do know that in the past, every time I try to corroborate a similar statement made in a similar tone I end up realizing the commenter was presenting a very narrow and biased, inaccurate, and occasionally slanderous view. So I don’t invest that time and energy anymore. Life is finite.

SkyPuncher 8y ago

> It is not difficult for anyone on HN to spend a weekend, read a machine learning book, and replicate most of Watson's functionality Yea.... I'm sure that's exactly how it is.

Arnavion 8y ago
Reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678501
- est 8y ago
  reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537246 It's a "china" grade replica based on Django, from the commit message it's done alone by some not talented dude, cost far less than 6 months.

jacquesm 8y ago

Watson is a term that is now so overloaded with hype that I tend to ignore it. It's worse than AI.

webaholic 8y ago

you are full of it. Are you sure you can replicate beating world class players on jeopardy in a weekend?

dudus 8y ago
But that's not Watson is and I think this is his point. Sure they had a great model and data to solve that problem. But this doesn't scale automatically for other use cases. You'd have to create a model for your use case and find training data. Tensorflow might offer better tools for that for free than the ones being shipped with Watson.
gojomo 8y ago
While parent post is full-of-it on the general question of replicating Watson's full bag-of-techniques against client problems in a weekend, I believe the Watson Jeopardy victory was far less impressive than it seemed. It's a very-constrained domain, and the challenge Watson won has never been opened to scrappy teams other than IBM. I wrote up my doubts way back in 2011: https://memesteading.com/2011/02/16/ibm-watson-overprovisioned-big-iron/ https://memesteading.com/2011/02/16/ibm-watson-overprovision... Here in 2018, I suspect a clever focused team could make a MacBook, with current dumps of Wikipedia/Wikidata and a few other key reference materials, competitive in most Jeopardy matches in a week or two. And, with 6 months to a year, as dominant as "Watson" was against the Jeopardy champs.
- dmreedy 8y ago
  I've had the pleasure of interacting with the codebase that played Jeopardy! and from where I stand, it's still one of the most impressive and beautifully-orchestrated systems I've ever seen. You are correct in your write-up though. Wikipedia titles are super helpful, where they exist.
- goatlover 8y ago
  > And, with 6 months to a year, as dominant as "Watson" was against the Jeopardy champs. Was Watson dominant because it had a buzzer advantage, or because it could answer the questions better? I recall the other two guys furiously trying to hit the button on different occasions and sighing when Watson beat them out yet again. Thing is we don't know that Watson was better at answering the questions, only that it was better in the Jeopardy game play the way things were setup.

RobLach 8y ago

You should do that then. After you’re done you can staff up 400 sales people at $120000 salaries to snatch one of IBM’s clients to a $60m contract and make a cool $10m+ profit.

ddmma 8y ago
Worked in a similiar setup as client of IBM and can confirm what you mentioned, where they tend sell consultancy on some ‘enterprise’ functionality that is already taken over by open source or better services like offered by Azure or AWS

dang 8y ago

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The i-could-do-this-in-a-weekend trope is the mother of shallow dismissals. Please don't post like that here.