IBM’s Watson

1. IBM’s Watson

2. Data Analysis Computing • Watson represents an innovation in Data Analysis Computing, • It means Watson can parse natural language better than anything out there. • In the system we use today, the user formulates a question, • pulls out 2-3 keywords, • sends them to a search engine which gets documents with the keywords present within and sends them back to the user, • who reads the documents and analyzes the results. • All of the real "work" is done by the user. • But a better system is one in which the user asks a natural language question, • the "expert" understands the question, • produces answer and evidence, • analyzes the results, • produces a statement about how confidant it is in the answer, • and returns its findings to the user. • This "expert" role used to be filled by librarians. • Watson is capable of doing this in less time and with a much larger set of resources than any human librarian could.

3. Automatic Open-Domain Question Answering • This type of computing is called Automatic Open-Domain Question Answering • Given a natural language question and resources, it should return • precise answers, • accurate confidence, • justifications, • and a fast response. • Before Watson, the best a program could do would either be the first two of these, or the last, but rarely all four. • Watson can do all four, and this is how:

4. How Does Watson Do It? • As soon as the prompt is chosen and clue revealed, Watson receives the text clue. • While Alex is reading the clue aloud (approximately 3 seconds) Watson parses the clue, • looking for type of answer, • things to search for, • and relationships to former clues, especially in that category. • It searches through its reference materials • retrieves candidate answers, • analyzes those answers, • synthesizes a final list of answers that are the same type hinted at in the question, • calculates the confidence in the answer based on keyword matching, • temporal reasoning (If the king of Spain lived for so many years and died on such a date, he was born on such a date), • statistical paraphrasing (fluid and liquid are technically different, but are commonly interchangeable terms), • and geospatial reasoning (Bordeaux is in France), • and possibly repeats this process if it broke the question into smaller pieces, decides on the most statistically probable answer, • and buzzes in as the buzzer is turned on, moments after Alex finishes speaking.

5. How Does Watson Do it So Fast? • How does Watson accomplish this feat in just three seconds? • For a single processor, this task might take anywhere between 20 minutes and 3 hours, • IBM again has found a solution. • Using a method called asynchronous scale-out • These jobs are doled out to an entire computing cluster comprised of 90 power 750 series servers with 2880 POWER7 processor cores, and 15 terabytes of RAM • can operate at 80 teraFLOPs. (floating-point operations per second) • Using this computing cluster, the same process takes less than 3 seconds and is done in plenty of time for Watson to activate his buzzer. • Between the software and hardware of Watson, it's easy to see how advanced this technology has become.

6. How Can We Use Watson? • What do we do with this new technology? • It's nice that we have a computer that can understand natural language questions, • But how do we use it?

7. Watson in HealthCare • One such use of Watson is in the health care system. • Medicine is the ultimate information-based profession. • Med students are required to memorize thousands of facts and terms. • Especially in the field of differential diagnosis, the ability to quickly access any of those thousands of facts can make or break a case. • IBM is currently working on a program to assist doctors in the differential diagnosis process. • Not only does it take input of symptoms from the doctor, • it looks through the patient's file for important details like • age, • trips out of the country, • family history, • or critical things like pregnancy, • and prompts further questions to ask the patient. • Then it can suggest a list of possible diagnoses with their relative confidences and justifications. • This is especially important in differential diagnosis because Watson would not return one answer, but a group with varying statistical probability. • After all, the most statistically likely disease is not necessarily the one the patient has.

8. Watson in Higher Education? • This is from IBM: • Watson can be used in higher education. • Higher education is essential for a flourishing economy • People with less schooling put a drag on the workforce. • Higher education produces people who are capable of being the "expert" • Thorough education takes years to create a talent base like that utilized by companies similar to IBM, • A single person with a high school diploma working a system like Watson could do the work of a college intern. • By using Watson, one could expand the effective talent base, improving the economyand thus the government • With a stronger and well-funded government there would be more support for utilities, healthcare, and public education, starting the cycle again. • Do you agree with this assessment by IBM?