7 ms·

IBM's Watson Gets Its First Piece Of Business In Healthcare

96 points by antalkerekes 14y ago

nolok 14y ago
This is truly impressive. The only part that I'm unsure about it is when they say they "WellPoint will be using the system [to help] health insurers determine which treatments are fair, appropriate and efficient and, in turn, what it will cover", the possibility for abuse their is significant. Anyway, congrats to anyone at IBM who worked on this, when you make the future so great it feels natural, you're doing it right.
- Evbn 14y ago
  But is the potential worse than existing systems?
  - mdda 14y ago
    Suppose a doctor is paid by the visit - his incentive is to keep you alive for as long as the insurance will allow him to (which could have minus points as well as plus points). Watson's recommendations could be aligned more directly to the insurance company's bottom line : Keep you healthy as long as possible, but kill you quickly when things turn south. Of course, it may be that Watson's choices are more optimal for the patient, but there's an ethical debate in there somewhere, I'm sure.
pzxc 14y ago
Please state the nature of the medical emergency.
DeepDuh 14y ago
People don't seem to realize how huge this is. This venture could easily turn out to be the most profitable in IBM's history, and one of the most important inventions in health care.
- jcfrei 14y ago
  I agree - this seems like a turning point in health care. granted, in five years most people will still get their medical advice from a person - but I wonder for how much longer after that.
  - visarga 14y ago
    I am extremely happy about Watson, but I need to point out some possibilities: Imagine this scenario. John earns 100K $/year, so he gets access to Watson. Jerry earns only 30K $/year, so he can only use the open source one, which has 10% less accuracy. That would be tragic. Another scenario: doctor X sees the Watson prediction, and has a doubt about them. He doesn't say anything for fear he could be charged with malpractice if the patient dies under his different treatment. Thus, doctor X is reduced to a yes man, and his boss is not even another man, but an artificial brain. How many doctors would dare oppose Watson ? Do we need doctors any more if all they do is rubber stamp Watson's results? What about medical students - if they know that the difference in diagnosis accuracy between a medium and a top student has been reduced to just 2-3%, why strive to learn more than the other? After all, it's the same whether you are in the top 1% or around the middle of your class. Ok, now for a positive scenario: we get cell phones with biometric sensors (medical tricorder) and we can input our symptoms. We are trained to do that because we took a 3 month medical class while in high-school. It was compulsory. So, now we can treat 80-90% of our problems without going into a doctor's office. This is amazing especially for remote areas and places where there is no access to doctors for hundreds of miles. Africa would be revolutionized by it. A single medical nurse with a cell phone / mobile lab could service many people.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      Google will make a free version. 10% less accuracy isn't tragic if it is phenomenonally better than what we have today.
    - xradionut 14y ago
      "Africa would be revolutionized by it." Correction: Healthcare in Africa "could" be revolutionized by it. No amount of tech/aid is going to "fix" Africa until decades of human greed and stupidity get reversed.
speeder 14y ago
Why I have the eerie feeling that this sort of thing might be very dangerous? I mean, what happen if too much people start to rely only on this, and then it is used to mislead (WWII battle of beams style) or what happen if people start to become dependant on it, and you have a power failure? For example a massive solar storm might happen in our lifetime, the last time it happened (about 150 years ago) it made telegraph lines catch on fire, and people could read newspaper at night using the aurora in the middle of the caribbean. If that happen again, it is very likely that we will have some time of global power and communication loss. Of course, that will mean some chaos. How hospitals that rely too much on technology will treat take care of the emergency?
- jonknee 14y ago
  In your scenario there will be so many other major problems that slower healthcare diagnoses will not be much of a factor. Most medical equipment would also be unusable so even if you know what is wrong you would be unable to do anything about it. You could make the same case against Google and yet it has proven to be a huge boon.
- booruguru 14y ago
  This product is essentially a search engine. Doctors refer to medical texts all of time, this IBM tool is simply making it easier (and faster) to access the right information using plain English queries. It's not like we're going to replace doctors with computer kiosks...well, at least not until they work out some of the bugs.
  - rtkwe 14y ago
    It's more than a search engine it aggregates the information from say 10 different studies or cases about a disease into a set of information which it then compares against the current case the doctor is looking at. At that point it posits some diagnoses or some treatments. Calling it a search engine is pretty dismissive.
    - mkr-hn 14y ago
lignuist 14y ago
I can imagine, how this will look like, so I illustrated it for your convenience. :) http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/3633/watsondiagnosissm.png http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/3633/watsondiagnosissm.pn...
Calcite 14y ago
This is the single most impressive use of artificial intelligence today. Let's hope we can improve successfully improve the lives of everyone with this technology.
abcd_f 14y ago
On one hand it's impressive and huge and through that is somewhat intimidating and scary, because it makes one feel like losing control (to the "machines"). On the other hand it's a straight-forward extension of a basic calculator. There are tasks that humans can do, but not as fast, so why not automate them? It doesn't mean that no one can subtract and divide by hand, it just makes one's work more efficient. Similarly, Watson doesn't mean that next generation doctors will be lazy incompetent asses at mercy of a powerful computer system. It means that they will have yet another instrument to help them do their job better.
- gridaphobe 14y ago
  I don't think the concern is that the next generation of doctors will be incompetent, but perhaps they won't be as quick as their elders. There are times where you can't wait 30 seconds for Watson to suggest a course of action.
  - mchusma 14y ago
    Im sure there are many concerns, but I don't think the time is fast enough to be a non issue. How many decisions cant wait 30 seconds? Besides, moores law indicates that this can probably be reduced to 5 seconds in 10 years (being very conservative and assuming the scope of Watson increases dramatically). Actually, by caching common results my guess is most things could be nearly instant within a year.
  - lucidrains 14y ago
    http://iaftp.org/2012/03/is-technology-eroding-pilot-skills/ http://iaftp.org/2012/03/is-technology-eroding-pilot-skills/
- Evbn 14y ago
  Not of Watson is missing an audit trail of its fuzzy calculations.
treerex 14y ago
This initial rollout is not intended to be used by doctors to determine (or even suggest) treatments for patients. IBM is usually very careful to point this out: they are not looking to replace doctors, at least not yet. (Source: work for a company that has worked with IBM on this)
31reasons 14y ago
education, marketing, sales, social networks, planning, ads, defense, science, engineering, politics, games, news.... "Watson eating the world"
gwern 14y ago
> WellPoint’s chief medical officer Samuel Nussbaum said at the press event today that health care pros make accurate treatment decisions in lung cancer cases only 50% of the time (a shocker to me). Watson, since being trained in this medical specialty, can make accurate decisions 90% of the time. That sounds very impressive if the number isn't being cooked in some way.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ScottBurson 14y ago
Watson doesn’t tell a doctor what to do, it provides several options with degrees of confidence for each, along with the supporting evidence it used to arrive at the optimal treatment. That is, of course, as it should be (except for the comma splice, heh), but I think there's a grave danger of doctors becoming complacent about it over time and just doing what Watson recommends. I think we need to make sure that "I did what the computer said" is not a defense against malpractice, and similarly that not doing what the computer said does not make one's defense more difficult. That will be a hard position to maintain, but the alternative is that eventually, doctors will cede their critical faculties to the machine.
- lucidrains 14y ago
  well, part of shifting the liability to machines is also beneficial. in a machine, u can find the fault and fix it, improving on the system so such a mistake never happens again in the future. as for enforcing reliability in humans, all you can really do is get out your whip and dish out negative reinforcement.
- ams6110 14y ago
  When Watson tells the hypertensive diabetic to stop smoking and lose 100 pounds of weight, is the patient going to be any more likely to do it than when his human doctor tells him the same thing?
- xyzzy123 14y ago
  OK, let me try scary scenario. According to the video, Watson is relying on a bunch of textbooks, guidelines, journal articles, clinical trials etc. What happens when drug companies SEO Watson's data sources to get their products or test procedures recommended?
busyant 14y ago
Does anyone know what the specific metric is that they are using to compare Wat son to doctors? What does it mean that doctors make the correct treatment decision 50% of the time? I don't doubt that Watson is better at this task, but it's difficult to have an appreciation of its ability without understanding the test.
entropy_ 14y ago
I think this goes to show, that even what we may now look upon as dinosaurs no longer capable of innovation can do great things if they put in the R&D and don't scuttle their own efforts with shitty corporate politics. I really, really, respect IBM for being able to do this despite its size and age as a company. They somehow have figured out how to keep(or start again) innovating when most companies that grow to that size tend to become complacent or just play catch-up with more innovative companies.
lucidrains 14y ago
i am in awe with the demonstration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZsPc0h_mtM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZsPc0h_mtM. i think anyone who has done any sort of clinical reasoning in the hospital would be at least a little impressed. the scary part is that such technologies can only improve, while even the most seasoned physician eventually have to face mental decline.
- Aron 14y ago
  Yeah interesting. It doesn't appear to characterize her bleak prognosis (regardless of treatment).
Gatsky 14y ago
It's funny that so many resources have been put into training Watson... far more than would ever go into training a medical student... It has access to medical evidence that is stuck behind pay walls otherwise... it has access to case histories that another clinician learning oncology could never access... Because of this, in some ways it's irrelevant to compare Watson to the old way of doing things... Of course it's better! It's a great development in technology... maybe in the end this is the only solution to the general disillusionment with doctors... it's too difficult and inefficient and failure prone to train warm bodies with their own personalities to do medicine. Watson and its ilk are an alternative with a better return on investment, and improving them is therefore easier to incentivize. A (closed source) triumph for technology... but a failure for education and academia...
Aron 14y ago
I can imagine the use of this for political campaigns, wherein the strategy is determined by the combinations of sub-electorate most likely achievable via which policy positions, stumping, ad-spend, etc. I'd like to see the sports version as well for team-building, drafting, etc. I've long thought it would be entertaining as well to have a sports announcer that was an AI. Not as high-profile or morally impressive, but I'm concerned that healthcare outcomes are difficult to measure and frequently marginal.

96 points by antalkerekes 14y ago

nolok 14y ago

This is truly impressive. The only part that I'm unsure about it is when they say they "WellPoint will be using the system [to help] health insurers determine which treatments are fair, appropriate and efficient and, in turn, what it will cover", the possibility for abuse their is significant. Anyway, congrats to anyone at IBM who worked on this, when you make the future so great it feels natural, you're doing it right.

Evbn 14y ago
But is the potential worse than existing systems?
- mdda 14y ago
  Suppose a doctor is paid by the visit - his incentive is to keep you alive for as long as the insurance will allow him to (which could have minus points as well as plus points). Watson's recommendations could be aligned more directly to the insurance company's bottom line : Keep you healthy as long as possible, but kill you quickly when things turn south. Of course, it may be that Watson's choices are more optimal for the patient, but there's an ethical debate in there somewhere, I'm sure.

pzxc 14y ago

Please state the nature of the medical emergency.

DeepDuh 14y ago

People don't seem to realize how huge this is. This venture could easily turn out to be the most profitable in IBM's history, and one of the most important inventions in health care.

jcfrei 14y ago
I agree - this seems like a turning point in health care. granted, in five years most people will still get their medical advice from a person - but I wonder for how much longer after that.
- visarga 14y ago
  I am extremely happy about Watson, but I need to point out some possibilities: Imagine this scenario. John earns 100K $/year, so he gets access to Watson. Jerry earns only 30K $/year, so he can only use the open source one, which has 10% less accuracy. That would be tragic. Another scenario: doctor X sees the Watson prediction, and has a doubt about them. He doesn't say anything for fear he could be charged with malpractice if the patient dies under his different treatment. Thus, doctor X is reduced to a yes man, and his boss is not even another man, but an artificial brain. How many doctors would dare oppose Watson ? Do we need doctors any more if all they do is rubber stamp Watson's results? What about medical students - if they know that the difference in diagnosis accuracy between a medium and a top student has been reduced to just 2-3%, why strive to learn more than the other? After all, it's the same whether you are in the top 1% or around the middle of your class. Ok, now for a positive scenario: we get cell phones with biometric sensors (medical tricorder) and we can input our symptoms. We are trained to do that because we took a 3 month medical class while in high-school. It was compulsory. So, now we can treat 80-90% of our problems without going into a doctor's office. This is amazing especially for remote areas and places where there is no access to doctors for hundreds of miles. Africa would be revolutionized by it. A single medical nurse with a cell phone / mobile lab could service many people.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    Google will make a free version. 10% less accuracy isn't tragic if it is phenomenonally better than what we have today.
  - xradionut 14y ago
    "Africa would be revolutionized by it." Correction: Healthcare in Africa "could" be revolutionized by it. No amount of tech/aid is going to "fix" Africa until decades of human greed and stupidity get reversed.

speeder 14y ago

Why I have the eerie feeling that this sort of thing might be very dangerous? I mean, what happen if too much people start to rely only on this, and then it is used to mislead (WWII battle of beams style) or what happen if people start to become dependant on it, and you have a power failure? For example a massive solar storm might happen in our lifetime, the last time it happened (about 150 years ago) it made telegraph lines catch on fire, and people could read newspaper at night using the aurora in the middle of the caribbean. If that happen again, it is very likely that we will have some time of global power and communication loss. Of course, that will mean some chaos. How hospitals that rely too much on technology will treat take care of the emergency?

jonknee 14y ago
In your scenario there will be so many other major problems that slower healthcare diagnoses will not be much of a factor. Most medical equipment would also be unusable so even if you know what is wrong you would be unable to do anything about it. You could make the same case against Google and yet it has proven to be a huge boon.
booruguru 14y ago
This product is essentially a search engine. Doctors refer to medical texts all of time, this IBM tool is simply making it easier (and faster) to access the right information using plain English queries. It's not like we're going to replace doctors with computer kiosks...well, at least not until they work out some of the bugs.
- rtkwe 14y ago
  It's more than a search engine it aggregates the information from say 10 different studies or cases about a disease into a set of information which it then compares against the current case the doctor is looking at. At that point it posits some diagnoses or some treatments. Calling it a search engine is pretty dismissive.
  - mkr-hn 14y ago

lignuist 14y ago

I can imagine, how this will look like, so I illustrated it for your convenience. :) http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/3633/watsondiagnosissm.png http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/3633/watsondiagnosissm.pn...

Calcite 14y ago

This is the single most impressive use of artificial intelligence today. Let's hope we can improve successfully improve the lives of everyone with this technology.

abcd_f 14y ago

On one hand it's impressive and huge and through that is somewhat intimidating and scary, because it makes one feel like losing control (to the "machines"). On the other hand it's a straight-forward extension of a basic calculator. There are tasks that humans can do, but not as fast, so why not automate them? It doesn't mean that no one can subtract and divide by hand, it just makes one's work more efficient. Similarly, Watson doesn't mean that next generation doctors will be lazy incompetent asses at mercy of a powerful computer system. It means that they will have yet another instrument to help them do their job better.

gridaphobe 14y ago
I don't think the concern is that the next generation of doctors will be incompetent, but perhaps they won't be as quick as their elders. There are times where you can't wait 30 seconds for Watson to suggest a course of action.
- mchusma 14y ago
  Im sure there are many concerns, but I don't think the time is fast enough to be a non issue. How many decisions cant wait 30 seconds? Besides, moores law indicates that this can probably be reduced to 5 seconds in 10 years (being very conservative and assuming the scope of Watson increases dramatically). Actually, by caching common results my guess is most things could be nearly instant within a year.
- lucidrains 14y ago
  http://iaftp.org/2012/03/is-technology-eroding-pilot-skills/ http://iaftp.org/2012/03/is-technology-eroding-pilot-skills/
Evbn 14y ago
Not of Watson is missing an audit trail of its fuzzy calculations.

treerex 14y ago

This initial rollout is not intended to be used by doctors to determine (or even suggest) treatments for patients. IBM is usually very careful to point this out: they are not looking to replace doctors, at least not yet. (Source: work for a company that has worked with IBM on this)

31reasons 14y ago

education, marketing, sales, social networks, planning, ads, defense, science, engineering, politics, games, news.... "Watson eating the world"

gwern 14y ago

> WellPoint’s chief medical officer Samuel Nussbaum said at the press event today that health care pros make accurate treatment decisions in lung cancer cases only 50% of the time (a shocker to me). Watson, since being trained in this medical specialty, can make accurate decisions 90% of the time. That sounds very impressive if the number isn't being cooked in some way.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

ScottBurson 14y ago

Watson doesn’t tell a doctor what to do, it provides several options with degrees of confidence for each, along with the supporting evidence it used to arrive at the optimal treatment. That is, of course, as it should be (except for the comma splice, heh), but I think there's a grave danger of doctors becoming complacent about it over time and just doing what Watson recommends. I think we need to make sure that "I did what the computer said" is not a defense against malpractice, and similarly that not doing what the computer said does not make one's defense more difficult. That will be a hard position to maintain, but the alternative is that eventually, doctors will cede their critical faculties to the machine.

lucidrains 14y ago
well, part of shifting the liability to machines is also beneficial. in a machine, u can find the fault and fix it, improving on the system so such a mistake never happens again in the future. as for enforcing reliability in humans, all you can really do is get out your whip and dish out negative reinforcement.
ams6110 14y ago
When Watson tells the hypertensive diabetic to stop smoking and lose 100 pounds of weight, is the patient going to be any more likely to do it than when his human doctor tells him the same thing?
xyzzy123 14y ago
OK, let me try scary scenario. According to the video, Watson is relying on a bunch of textbooks, guidelines, journal articles, clinical trials etc. What happens when drug companies SEO Watson's data sources to get their products or test procedures recommended?

busyant 14y ago

Does anyone know what the specific metric is that they are using to compare Wat son to doctors? What does it mean that doctors make the correct treatment decision 50% of the time? I don't doubt that Watson is better at this task, but it's difficult to have an appreciation of its ability without understanding the test.

entropy_ 14y ago

I think this goes to show, that even what we may now look upon as dinosaurs no longer capable of innovation can do great things if they put in the R&D and don't scuttle their own efforts with shitty corporate politics. I really, really, respect IBM for being able to do this despite its size and age as a company. They somehow have figured out how to keep(or start again) innovating when most companies that grow to that size tend to become complacent or just play catch-up with more innovative companies.

lucidrains 14y ago

i am in awe with the demonstration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZsPc0h_mtM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZsPc0h_mtM. i think anyone who has done any sort of clinical reasoning in the hospital would be at least a little impressed. the scary part is that such technologies can only improve, while even the most seasoned physician eventually have to face mental decline.

Aron 14y ago
Yeah interesting. It doesn't appear to characterize her bleak prognosis (regardless of treatment).

Gatsky 14y ago

It's funny that so many resources have been put into training Watson... far more than would ever go into training a medical student... It has access to medical evidence that is stuck behind pay walls otherwise... it has access to case histories that another clinician learning oncology could never access... Because of this, in some ways it's irrelevant to compare Watson to the old way of doing things... Of course it's better! It's a great development in technology... maybe in the end this is the only solution to the general disillusionment with doctors... it's too difficult and inefficient and failure prone to train warm bodies with their own personalities to do medicine. Watson and its ilk are an alternative with a better return on investment, and improving them is therefore easier to incentivize. A (closed source) triumph for technology... but a failure for education and academia...

Aron 14y ago

I can imagine the use of this for political campaigns, wherein the strategy is determined by the combinations of sub-electorate most likely achievable via which policy positions, stumping, ad-spend, etc. I'd like to see the sports version as well for team-building, drafting, etc. I've long thought it would be entertaining as well to have a sports announcer that was an AI. Not as high-profile or morally impressive, but I'm concerned that healthcare outcomes are difficult to measure and frequently marginal.