Watson’s Impact

Edit: It does not seem like it was that long ago, and yet.. Some of the links no longer work.

Originally posted March 29, 2011 on AIXchange

The IBM Jeopardy! challenge has ended, the experience succinctly summarized with Ken Jennings’ words after Final Jeopardy: “I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.”

I heard that the project was originally code-named bluej. IBM code names are meant to be placeholders, but still, I’m glad they went with the name Watson. Hearing that bluej beat Jennings doesn’t have the same ring, and somehow, I’m not sure the Ken Jennings reddit AMA (ask me anything) would have been quite as interesting. (Warning: comments may not be safe for work.)

Here’s another reddit AMA with Watson team members.

Though the buzz has naturally subsided, interest is still strong. From what I understand there remains a huge demand for Watson team members to speak at different events. Really, just about any conference you may attend in the near future — Pulse, Impact, Innovate: SWG Events, STG Technical Conferences, COMMON Minneapolis, Power User Groups, Smarter Computing Summit, LinuxCon, University Events and many more — will feature presentations and demos.

There of course has been tons of discussion about what Watson’s victory means for humanity, including, already, a book.

The Jeopardy Archive breaks down Watson’s win (herehere and here).

Recently I saw the webcast, “Beyond Jeopardy!: The Business Implications of IBM Watson.” The participants explore potential real-world uses of this information processing technology (healthcare, for example).

Thanks to Watson, lately I find myself talking about Power systems with non-technical people. Generally, these folks would have a hard time imagining what I do for a living, but because they saw Alex Trebek in the computer room with those servers and computer racks, I found I could more easily explain what I do: “I rack and stack and configure and sell those 750s you saw on Jeopardy!, along with the rest of the IBM Power server product line.”

By the way, Watson may have won the challenge, but it isn’t undefeated. Rush Holt, the New Jersey congressman and a Jeopardy! champ from the 1970s, recently beat a slightly slower Watson version. From CNN:

“After beating Watson $8,600 to $6,200, Holt expressed admiration for the machine, saying the technology has the potential to be extremely useful in situations that require tough decision-making, such as medical diagnosis, air traffic control, and situations that require piecing together bits of knowledge.

“Such technology can also be extremely helpful in emergencies, like an outbreak of a food-borne illness or a natural disaster, said Chris Padilla, vice president of IBM Governmental Programs.

“‘In the modern world, we’re all flooded with information,’ Padilla said. ‘What Watson can do, is go through all of that data, and in response to a natural language question, rank the order of likely responses in terms of what you asked it in the first place.'”

IBM has a webpage filled with interesting facts. For instance, during preliminary sparring matches Watson only used 75 percent of its processing resources. And did you know that a computer with a single processing core takes more than two hours to perform the deep analytics needed to answer a single Jeopardy! clue? Watson, in contrast, holds all the information that it needs to compete on Jeopardy! in about 500 GB of space. You’ll also find flash animations of the machine on stage, a graphic depicting the physical server layout and links to Watson’s architecture, workload, energy storage and network usage and more.

Finally, check out IBM’s Watson website and this whitepaper.

I expect Watson will be talked about for quite some time, both for what it did and for what it can potentially do. Are you still following Watson? Did you enjoy seeing POWER7 machines on prime time television? Are your non-technical friends actually interested in what you do now? Feel free to post in Comments.

#watson