It is fairly impressive as a product/sales juggernaut, though. A lot of what Watson is doing is fairly standard expert systems + statistics, in a way very "clas

It is fairly impressive as a product/sales juggernaut, though. A lot of what Watson is doing is fairly standard expert systems + statistics, in a way very "classic AI" style, like the AI diagnosis systems of the '70s that achieved good results but never managed to surpass the deployment & political hurdles needed to get into hospitals. Besides benefiting from increased acceptance of computers in the hospital in general in the intervening years (iPads are everywhere now, and doctors look things up on the internet more than they'd like to admit), Watson has managed to put together the right combination of PR and politics to get it sold. Lots of managers, in both the medical field and elsewhere, seem willing to try out "deploying Watson" in a way they would never agree to "deploy an expert system".