Chapter 11: Does IBM’s Watson Have a Future in Business? Pages 447-450 (Laudon, p.4).

Select
and answer only ONE Case Study Discussion Question (Laudon, p.4).
11-14 How “intelligent” is Watson? What can it do? What can’t it do?
According to our text, Watson is a computer built by IBM designed to achieve something that
has never been achieved by any computer in artificial intelligence (Laudon, p.447). Watson can
use and interpret human language (Laudon, p.447). The goal for IBM Watson’s was to develop a
computer capable of using a more useful range of techniques to process people’s natural
language (Laudon, p.447).
In fact, the essential characteristics of Watson is that computer must instinctually interpret as
people so that stronger hardware must work faster and accurately (Laudon, p.447). Our
textbook states the computer is made up “10 racks of IBM POWER 750 servers running Linux
with 15 terabytes of RAM and 2,880 processor cores (equivalent to 6,000 top-end home
computers) and operated at 80 teraflops” (Laudon, p.447). Watson’s database consists of vast
amounts of data, the team downloaded millions of uploaded documents from the internet,
Wikipedia and information from the encyclopedia, and uploaded them to Watson’s primary
memory (Laudon, p.477).
Next, with only 10% of the hardware used in the latest version, the existing version is 24 times
faster than the original version (Laudon, p.447). Watson requires a large volume of data present
in its database to scan effectively (Laudon, p.448). Further, Watson can find the required data
within three seconds from its massive database (Laudon, p.448). As it is much like humans,
through machine learning, it can learn from its errors and its successes (Laudon, p.4). Watson
consists of several thousand algorithms, which solve a typical problem by computing all the
algorithms (Laudon, p.448).
Equally important, in Watson’s primary memory, algorithms are programmed for language
evaluations, indication, more information, and tens of thousands of solutions (Laudon, p.448).
Watson recalls a algorithm that works to resolve a questions and uses it to get correct answers
(Laudon, p.448). Watson uses different patterns to get answers to problems to gain different
degrees of confidence (Laudon, p.4). Watson uses its unique computing power and speed for an
intuitive approach like humans (Laudon, p.448).
As a result, things that Watson cannot do; Watson can perform solutions for the only a set
number of problems (Laudon, p.449). Watson cannot guess solutions for problems, out its
memory (Laudon, p.449). Someday, Watson is expected to become more useful and gain more
knowledge using more groups of questions from different fields (Laudon, p.449). 

References:
Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2018). Management information systems: Managing the digital
firm (15th ed., pp. 447-450). New York, NY: Pearson Education

Matthew, Strong statements! "AI and machine learning algorithms are a problem because it
requires engineers to feed certain data to keep track of their knowledge so that the growth of
Watson is limited by staff and not computer power." As you said, however, it's time for Watson,
and it can manage specific areas without any help. For these reasons, I'd like to discuss Watson
and healthcare.
Gini Rometty, CEO of IBM, said he had a strong vision for the healthcare future at a significant
health technology conference (Zehel, 2018). Healthcare AI (or IBM's term ' cognitive computing')
is about to enter the' golden age,' Rometty expressed. "I believe that healthcare could be the
world's leader in showing what it means for an industry to shape an era." (Zehel, 2018).
It is not surprising that Rometty can pay attention to AI. Recently, IBM has put substantial
assets into its computerized care department, IBM Watson Welfare (Zehel, 2018) In the
healthcare period of cognitive time, IBM expects that Watson Health will play a crucial role.
Investors hold large sums of assets in health care startup companies, and Rometty's intention is
far from simply that (Zehel, 2018).
CB Insights report that over 100 care firms use AI to provide patients with practical help, reduce
drug discovery periods, clinical crunch data, and more (Zehel, 2018). AI startups are only
beginning with an explosion of attention, predicting that AI and cognitive technology will
generate $6.7 billion in revenues by 2021 (Zehel, 2018). This was not everything— by Harpreet
Singh Buttar, an Ice&Sullivan expert, AI organizations will remain all-inclusive until 2025 from
the welfare community to digital avatars that can respond to specific patient queries (Zehel,
2018).

However, AI's perspective spreads far beyond the local level, and Buttar notes, AI is expected to
play a significant role in information democratization and resource mitigation on a global level,
in regions with highly underserved patient populations (Zehel, 2018).
References:

Zehel, J. (2018, February 23). Healthcare AI Will Survive Its Hype Cycle. Retrieved April 24,
2019, from https://www.redoxengine.com/blog/healthcare-ai-will-survive-its-hype-cycle/