4 ms·

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 rig

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
  Have you used Google recently?
  - brianpan 14y ago
    Our doctors certainly already do.
  - rtkwe 14y ago
    For all the grand magic that Google works behind the scenes it falls pretty short of the work that Watson does.
- booruguru 14y ago
  I'm wasn't being dismissive. I'm not suggesting what IBM has accomplished is trivial... what I'm saying is, doctors can't use Watson to do their job; it's just another diagnostic resource... As opposed to being a harbinger of the coming robopocalyse (as some people seem to be suggesting)
- xyzzy123 14y ago
  I agree, this is a lot more than a search engine. But I guess that over time it will have to deal with the same issues that search engines do. Think drug company or test procedure journal spam, designed to SEO Watson into making specific decisions or recommendations.
  - rtkwe 14y ago
    Ideally if Watson were able to parse documents well enough they would have to actively lie in order to twist Watson that way. Also a lot of what goes into Watson is peer reviewed in the medical field iirc so there's also that buffer.