IBM Watson: Machine-Of-All-Trades
From fashion to food to healthcare, IBM's Watson has many guises across different industries. Here's a look at some of the work IBM's AI system has been doing since its Jeopardy! heyday.
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After defeating Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings in a game of Jeopardy! in 2011, IBM's Watson couldn't survive on its $77,147 in winnings. Unlike Microsoft's Cortana and Apple's Siri, Watson lacked a parent willing to let it continue living in the basement rent-free, so it got a paying job in healthcare, helping insurer Wellpoint and doctors by providing treatment advice.
Since then, and following investments of more than $1 billion, Watson has become a machine-of-all-trades. Through a combination of machine learning, natural language processing, and a variety of other technologies, Watson is helping companies across a broad spectrum of businesses. Beyond healthcare, Watson earns its keep in fashion, hospitality, food, gaming, retail, financial services, and veterinary medicine.
Its latest engagement involves protecting computers from its own kind. On Tuesday, IBM announced Watson for Cyber Security, a role that comes with residence in the cloud, instead of the Power 750 systems it inhabits on corporate premises.
This fall, Watson, with the assistance of researchers at eight universities, will begin learning to recognize cyber-security threats in the hope that its cognitive capabilities will help identify malicious code and formulate mitigation strategies. The core of its training data will come from IBM's X-Force research library, which includes data on 8 million spam and phishing attacks, as well as more than 100,000 vulnerabilities.
IBM believes that Watson's ability to understand unstructured data makes it well-suited for malware hunting. The firm said that 80% of all Internet data is unstructured, and that the typical organization makes use of only about 8% of this data. Given AI's already considerable role in fraud detection, it wouldn't be surprising to see Watson excel in cyber-security.
Marc van Zadelhoff, general manager of IBM Security, sees Watson as an answer to the cyber-security talent shortage. "Even if the industry was able to fill the estimated 1.5 million open cyber-security jobs by 2020, we'd still have a skills crisis in security," he said in a statement.
So robots, of a sort, are taking jobs. But this may be for the best, since the work of processing more than 15,000 security documents a month, according to IBM, would be rather a chore.
At the same time, Watson will benefit from free labor, in the form of job training provided by students at the eight universities involved with the project.
You, too, may see Watson or something similar working in your industry. It won't be a particularly social colleague, but at least it will get you those reports you need on time.
Here's a look at a few of the many faces of Watson.
Watson provided design advice to help fashion company Marchesa create what the firm calls a cognitive dress. Marchesa's design team told Watson the kinds of emotions they wanted to convey, and Watson responded by offering color palette and fabric suggestions. IBM's AI also listened to social channels to identify sentiment expressed about the dress, and used that data to illuminate LEDs attached to the garment.
In March, Hilton Worldwide introduced a robot concierge called Connie, named after the hotel chain's founder and powered by IBM's Watson. Connie uses Watson APIs to answer questions about nearby attractions and hotel-related services.
Bear Naked offers customers the opportunity to create their own granola formulation. In order to prevent customers from being overwhelmed by the thousands of potential ingredient combinations available to them, the company employs Watson. Chef Watson, as the AI system is referred to, will suggest ingredients that complement those chosen by the customer.
To mix with a cacao/cashew butter base, Watson recommended pecans, walnuts, and pineapple chunks. Pretzel bits, lavender, and freeze-dried mushrooms did not make the cut. Thanks, Watson, for saving me from allowing chipotle, edamame, kale granola into the world.
Watson provides healthcare advice for humans and animals alike. Through Sofie, a veterinary diagnostic app from LifeLearn, Watson helps veterinarians ask questions and receive answers about animal healthcare and treatment.
Edge Up Sports teamed with IBM Watson to bring analytical capabilities to fantasy football. With Watson's APIs, the company's app can analyze the vast amount of data about football and its players, thereby enabling fantasy league players to make better decisions.
The Watson Trend app, introduced in November 2015, offers consumers insight into popular products, in case you care about such things. By analyzing tens of millions of online conversations, Watson Trend is able to identify the top 100 trending products across segments that include consumer electronics, toys, and health/fitness.
IBM has worked with various industry partners to create data discovery models called Expert Storybooks. Used in conjunction with Watson, these models can show, for example, how weather correlates with beer sales. If you happen to sell beer, that's information worth knowing.
IBM has worked with various industry partners to create data discovery models called Expert Storybooks. Used in conjunction with Watson, these models can show, for example, how weather correlates with beer sales. If you happen to sell beer, that's information worth knowing.
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