8 ms·

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 inve

by 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.
  - pekk 14y ago
    The parts of Africa which aren't going to the hospital aren't revolutionized by it. And the ones which go to the hospital and pick up an infection aren't revolutionized by it.
  - MoosePlissken 14y ago
    "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?" From what I've heard, med school is mostly about memorizing huge amounts of information without a whole lot of critical thinking. But that's a task that computers are infinitely better at than humans. Wouldn't it be a good thing if Watson could free med students from rote memorization, allowing them to instead focus on something that humans are actually good at, like research?
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    ...100K $/year, so he gets access to Watson...only 30K $/year...open source one, which has 10% less accuracy. That would be tragic. Why is a Pareto improvement (everyone being better off than before) tragic?
    - foobarqux 14y ago
      Can't we reasonably argue that there is a psychological, emotional or social cost in having some people much worse off than others?
booruguru 14y ago
Preach on. I'm baffled by how techies can be so underwhelmed by what IBM is doing.
- giardini 14y ago
  Such software has been available for decades, been shown to be superior to human diagnosis, and yet has not been accepted by the medical community. Doctors will likely continue to push back. It may require restructuring of the medical education community (perhaps a' la the movie Idiocracy) to bring about utilization. "50 years of successful predictive modeling should be enough: Lessons for philosophy of science (2002)" http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.217.949 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.217.... Idiocracy, the movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
  - tluyben2 14y ago
    I didn't read your links yet (on mobile), but I will. I know of great knowledge base systems from the 80s which were never accepted but performed very well. A UK PhD who now makes his money in pharma told me that, although the results were better, those systems were effectively blocked by the physician community (anyone has any citation/references?).
    - gwern 14y ago
      Legal issues and medical opposition was the explanation I read for why http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MYCIN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MYCIN never went into practical use.
  - MoosePlissken 14y ago
    The book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" has a great chapter on human predictions versus those made by forumlas. The superiority of simple forumlas was being demonstrated way back in the 50s (see "Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis And A Review Of The Evidence"). Since then the evidence for statistical rather than intuitive prediction has only become stronger. From "Thinking, Fast and Slow": "The number of studies reporting comparisons of clinical and statistical predictions has increased to roughly two hundred, but the score in the contest between algorithms and humans has not changed. About 60% of the studies have shown significantly better accuracy for the algorithms. The other comparisons scored a draw in accuracy, but a tie is tantamount to a win for the statistical rules, which are normally much less expensive to use than expert judgment. No exception has been convincingly documented." Also interesting: "Several studies have shown that human decision makers are inferior to a prediction formula even when they are given the score suggested by the formula! They feel that they can overrule the formula because they have additional information about the case, but they are wrong more often than not."

by 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.
- pekk 14y ago
  The parts of Africa which aren't going to the hospital aren't revolutionized by it. And the ones which go to the hospital and pick up an infection aren't revolutionized by it.
- MoosePlissken 14y ago
  "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?" From what I've heard, med school is mostly about memorizing huge amounts of information without a whole lot of critical thinking. But that's a task that computers are infinitely better at than humans. Wouldn't it be a good thing if Watson could free med students from rote memorization, allowing them to instead focus on something that humans are actually good at, like research?
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  ...100K $/year, so he gets access to Watson...only 30K $/year...open source one, which has 10% less accuracy. That would be tragic. Why is a Pareto improvement (everyone being better off than before) tragic?
  - foobarqux 14y ago
    Can't we reasonably argue that there is a psychological, emotional or social cost in having some people much worse off than others?

booruguru 14y ago

Preach on. I'm baffled by how techies can be so underwhelmed by what IBM is doing.

giardini 14y ago
Such software has been available for decades, been shown to be superior to human diagnosis, and yet has not been accepted by the medical community. Doctors will likely continue to push back. It may require restructuring of the medical education community (perhaps a' la the movie Idiocracy) to bring about utilization. "50 years of successful predictive modeling should be enough: Lessons for philosophy of science (2002)" http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.217.949 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.217.... Idiocracy, the movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
- tluyben2 14y ago
  I didn't read your links yet (on mobile), but I will. I know of great knowledge base systems from the 80s which were never accepted but performed very well. A UK PhD who now makes his money in pharma told me that, although the results were better, those systems were effectively blocked by the physician community (anyone has any citation/references?).
  - gwern 14y ago
    Legal issues and medical opposition was the explanation I read for why http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MYCIN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MYCIN never went into practical use.
- MoosePlissken 14y ago
  The book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" has a great chapter on human predictions versus those made by forumlas. The superiority of simple forumlas was being demonstrated way back in the 50s (see "Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis And A Review Of The Evidence"). Since then the evidence for statistical rather than intuitive prediction has only become stronger. From "Thinking, Fast and Slow": "The number of studies reporting comparisons of clinical and statistical predictions has increased to roughly two hundred, but the score in the contest between algorithms and humans has not changed. About 60% of the studies have shown significantly better accuracy for the algorithms. The other comparisons scored a draw in accuracy, but a tie is tantamount to a win for the statistical rules, which are normally much less expensive to use than expert judgment. No exception has been convincingly documented." Also interesting: "Several studies have shown that human decision makers are inferior to a prediction formula even when they are given the score suggested by the formula! They feel that they can overrule the formula because they have additional information about the case, but they are wrong more often than not."