38 Facts About IBM Watson

1.

IBM Watson is a question-answering computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, developed in IBM's DeepQA project by a research team led by principal investigator David Ferrucci.

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2.

In February 2013, IBM announced that Watson software system's first commercial application would be for utilization management decisions in lung cancer treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, in conjunction with WellPoint .

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3.

Watson was created as a question answering computing system that IBM built to apply advanced natural language processing, information retrieval, knowledge representation, automated reasoning, and machine learning technologies to the field of open domain question answering.

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4.

In recent years, Watson's capabilities have been extended and the way in which Watson works has been changed to take advantage of new deployment models, evolved machine learning capabilities, and optimized hardware available to developers and researchers.

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5.

Sources of information for IBM Watson include encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, newswire articles and literary works.

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6.

IBM Watson used databases, taxonomies and ontologies including DBPedia, WordNet and Yago.

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7.

The IBM team provided Watson with millions of documents, including dictionaries, encyclopedias and other reference material, that it could use to build its knowledge.

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8.

IBM Watson parses questions into different keywords and sentence fragments in order to find statistically related phrases.

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9.

Once IBM Watson has a small number of potential solutions, it is able to check against its database to ascertain whether the solution makes sense or not.

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10.

IBM Watson's basic working principle is to parse keywords in a clue while searching for related terms as responses.

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11.

IBM Watson has deficiencies in understanding the contexts of the clues.

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12.

IBM Watson's programming prevents it from using the popular tactic of buzzing before it is sure of its response.

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13.

However, IBM Watson has consistently better reaction time on the buzzer once it has generated a response, and is immune to human players' psychological tactics, such as jumping between categories on every clue.

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14.

IBM Watson was notified by an electronic signal and could activate the buzzer within about eight milliseconds.

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15.

IBM Watson consistently outperformed its human opponents on the game's signalling device, but had trouble in a few categories, notably those having short clues containing only a few words.

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16.

Originally IBM Watson signalled electronically, but show staff requested that it press a button physically, as the human contestants would.

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17.

Joshua Davis, the artist who designed the avatar for the project, explained to Stephen Baker that there are 36 trigger-able states that IBM Watson was able to use throughout the game to show its confidence in responding to a clue correctly; he had hoped to be able to find forty-two, to add another level to the Hitchhiker's Guide reference, but he was unable to pinpoint enough game states.

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18.

IBM Watson, represented by a computer monitor display and artificial voice, responded correctly to the second clue and then selected the fourth clue of the first category, a deliberate strategy to find the Daily Double as quickly as possible.

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19.

In one instance, IBM Watson repeated a reworded version of an incorrect response offered by Jennings.

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20.

IBM Watson sees a future in which fields like medical diagnosis, business analytics, and tech support are automated by question-answering software like Watson.

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21.

IBM Watson intends to use Watson in other information-intensive fields, such as telecommunications, financial services, and government.

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22.

In November 2013, IBM announced it would make Watson's API available to software application providers, enabling them to build apps and services that are embedded in Watson's capabilities.

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23.

IBM Watson has been integrated with databases including Bon Appetit magazine to perform a recipe generating platform.

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24.

IBM Watson is being used by Decibel, a music discovery startup, in its app MusicGeek which uses the supercomputer to provide music recommendations to its users.

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25.

In September 2016, Conde Nast started using IBM Watson to help build and strategize social influencer campaigns for brands.

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26.

In February 2017, Rare Carat, a New York City-based startup and e-commerce platform for buying diamonds and diamond rings, introduced an IBM Watson-powered artificial intelligence chatbot called "Rocky" to assist novice diamond buyers through the daunting process of purchasing a diamond.

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27.

In May 2017, IBM partnered with the Pebble Beach Company to use Watson as a concierge.

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28.

The sources of data that IBM Watson uses for analysis can include treatment guidelines, electronic medical record data, notes from healthcare providers, research materials, clinical studies, journal articles and patient information.

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29.

In February 2011, it was announced that IBM would be partnering with Nuance Communications for a research project to develop a commercial product during the next 18 to 24 months, designed to exploit Watson's clinical decision support capabilities.

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30.

IBM Watson announced a partnership with Cleveland Clinic in October 2012.

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31.

IBM Watson has sent Watson to the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, where it will increase its health expertise and assist medical professionals in treating patients.

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32.

One expert assessed to CNN that "IBM Watson was clearly not gaining much traction in the healthcare market".

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33.

IBM Watson is launching a $100 million venture fund to spur application development for "cognitive" applications.

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34.

IBM CEO Virginia Rometty said she wants Watson to generate $10 billion in annual revenue within ten years.

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35.

Chef Watson is Bon Appetit magazine's and IBM's artificial-intelligence cooking web app.

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36.

IBM Watson helped a team of chefs create five new poutines for the 2015 La Poutine Week food festival in Toronto and Montreal.

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37.

IBM Watson is being used for several projects relating to education, and has entered partnerships with Pearson Education, Blackboard, Sesame Workshop and Apple.

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38.

In September 2017, IBM announced that with its acquisition of The Weather Company's advertising sales division, and a partnership with advertising neural network Cognitiv, Watson will provide AI-powered advertising solutions.

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