Free One Year Old, 13 Page IBM Ebook about Cognitive Computing
February 3, 2017
I like short books. But 13 pages? If you are thirsty for knowledge about IBM’s cognitive computing push, you will want to navigate to this link and download The Promise of Cognitive Computing, originally published in February 2016. Timely. My undergraduate honors essay was about five times longer than this IBM ebook.
What’s in the scholarly gem? Here’s a sampling of the topics:
- Technology transforms
- The opportunity is providing insights
- The solution: Businesses built on cognitive computing
- The opportunity for start ups
- Six real life examples of cognitive computing products
- Six steps for developing a cognitive computing product
There are two sidebars filled with useful information; for example, a definition of unstructured information and four reasons to build a cognitive computing business using Watson. There is also a link to a 30 day free trial of Watson.
Interesting. What’s happened in a year of cognitive computing? Not enough to warrant a second edition. Apparently the 19 consecutive quarters of declining revenue has blunted some of the marketing enthusiasm for ebooks.
Stephen E Arnold, February 3, 2017
IBM Watson: Inventing a Distilled Rum
January 29, 2017
I think this write up has some drops of truth in it. I wanted to check with a former MADD volunteer, but the email address wobbled and then fell against a light pole. The title was arresting: “IBM Watson Bottles ‘Holiday Spirit’ with New RUM Created Using Artificial Intelligence.” The source? The “real” news outfit the UK Mirror.
The write up explained that Watson allegedly “produces beverage based on social media posts.” I learned:
“Holiday Spirit” is claimed to be the world’s very first data-distilled rum and was created using IBM Watson. The supercomputer analyzed data from social media posts in order to produce a bespoke rum “that tastes like a holiday”. “In just six hours Watson was able to read 15 million posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter relating to holidays – and find the predominant emotions and concepts in those posts,” explained Joe Harrods, big data analyst and AI expert, who works closely with Watson.
The idea was that Watson guzzled 5,000 rum reviews. Then Watson demonstrated that it was in control of its faculties by “matching emotions from the reviews with ingredients.” Finally Walked a straight line to a master blender who concocted liquor, hooch, booze, or nectar that
has a subtle vanilla flavor, medium sweetness, hints of coconut and is naturally caressed with cinnamon and allspice.
So what? Here’s the results of the breathalyzer test:
“There’s no reason that this ‘taste sensation’ couldn’t be recreated for all kinds of experiences and emotions. We’ve already seen robot bartenders that can mix custom cocktails for every different punter based on their personality…
I am delighted that I have never had a drink of alcohol. I wonder if the same might be said of Watson or possibly the marketer who blended this knock out punch for artificial intelligence. What was that question? Oh, right. I remember: “Watson, when will you generate enough money to make IBM stakeholders happy.”
After 10 consecutive quarters of declining revenue, Holiday Spirit may be in short supply.
Stephen E Arnold, January 29, 2017
IBM Watson: Now About Generating Big Revenue
January 27, 2017
To IBM’s credit, since the “weather” changed, IBM’s Watson marketing has been less fun for me. I did enjoy reading “Elementary, My Dear IBM: When Will Watson Make Money?” I prefer the concept of substantial, sustainable revenue which generates profits for stakeholders, but the write up’s title is pretty good.
After asking this important question, the write up states:
IBM Watson has taken heat from Wall Street for not adding to Big Blue’s revenue as the company reported a 19th successive quarter of decline.
That’s quite a track record. Nineteen of anything in a row is difficult to pull off. Way to go, IBM.
I highlighted this passage as well:
But quizzing executives following IBM’s financial report on the fourth quarter of 2016, Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty noted that although Watson was getting a “pretty significant share of the press” – to put it mildly – unlike the other businesses that it was cited alongside, Watson was “not contributing to revenue”. Huberty probed when Watson would start bringing in money. IBM admitted to shaving spent a combined $16bn on R&D and acquisitions during 2016, including buying 15 companies such as the $2.6bn acquisition of Truven Health Analytics.
I put a Big Blue exclamation point next to this passage. IBM’s CFO commented about Watson’s payoff this way:
revenue would come through Watson serving IBM’s strategic imperatives and cognitive software. Watson is the “silver thread” running though Watson Health and Financial Services, IBM’s IoT and security, he said. “Watson is firmly, firmly established as the silver thread that runs through those cognitive solutions and you can see all of that in the solution software performance.”
Okay, shareholders, there’s your answer. What can one weave with silver thread? How about some silver thread pants for the executive who needs to slay financial dragons in World of Warcraft.
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2017
IBM Explains Buggy Whip to Control Corvettes
January 19, 2017
I love IBM. I enjoy the IBM Watson marketing. I get a kick out of the firm’s saga of declining quarterly revenue. Will IBM make it 19 quarters in a row? I am breathless.
I read “IBM’s Rometty Lays Out AI Considerations, Ethical Principals.” The main idea, as I understand it, is:
artificial intelligence should be used to advance and augment humans not replace them. Transparency of AI development is also necessary.
Since smart software is dependent upon numerical recipes, I am not sure that the many outfits involved in fiddling with procedures, systems, and methods are going to make clear what their wizards are doing. Furthermore, IBM, in my opinion, is a bit of a buggy whip outfit. The idea that a buggy whip can control a bright 18 year old monitoring a drone swarm relying on artificial intelligence to complete a mission. Maybe IBM will equip Watson with telepathy?
The write up explains:
Commonly referred to as artificial intelligence, this new generation of technology and the cognitive systems it helps power will soon touch every facet of work and life – with the potential to radically transform them for the better…As with every prior world-changing technology, this technology carries major implications. Many of the questions it raises are unanswerable today and will require time, research and open discussion to answer.
Okay. What’s DeepMind up to? What about those folks at Facebook, Baidu, Microsoft, MIT, and most of the upscale French universities doing? Are the insights of researchers in Beijing finding their way into the media channel?
Well, IBM is going to take action if the information in the “real” journalistic write up is on the money. Here’s what Big Blue is going to do in its continuing effort to become a plus for stakeholders:
- IBM’s systems will augment human intelligence. Sounds good but the direction of some smart software is to make it easy for humans to get a pizza. The digital divide delivers convenience to lots of folks and big paydays to those in the top tier who find a way to sell stuff. Alexa, I need paper towels.
- Transparency. Right, that’s a great idea, but how it plays out in the real world is going to be a bit hit and miss. Actually, more miss than hit. The big money folks want to move to “winner take all” plays. Amazon Alexa has partners. Amazon keeps some money as it continues it march to global digital Wal-Mart-ism.
- Skills. Yep, the smart software movers and shakers buy promising outfits. Even the allegedly independent folks in Montréal are finding Microsoft a pretty nifty place to work.
Perhaps the folks doing smart software will meet and agree on some rules. Better yet, the US government can legislate rules and then rely on the United Nations or NGOs to promulgate them. Wait. There is a better way. Why not use a Vulcan mind meld?
I understand the IBM has to take the high road, but when a drone swarm makes its own decisions, whipping the rule books may not have much effect. Love those MBA chestnuts like buggy whips.
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2017
IBM Does Not Correlate Patents and Revenue
January 12, 2017
I read “IBM Achieves Record Number of U.S. patents in 2016, 24th Straight Year of Patent Dominance.” I learned that Big Blue, the owner of the Watson things, “earned a total of 8,088 U.S. patents last year at a rate of 22 patents per day…” Impressive. I checked IBM’s financial performance and verified that the company has reported its 18th consecutive quarter of declining revenue. It certainly seems that generating top line revenue growth is not correlated with filing patents. What is correlated is the overhead cost of preparing patent documents. Less stressful than making sales I believe. I respond to revenue dominance, not lawyering. But that’s my Harrod’s Creek shortsightedness.
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2017
The Dark Web and Surface Web Connection
January 11, 2017
IBM is doing its part to educate about the Dark Web. IBM Big Data and Analytics Hub shared a podcast episode entitled, Should we shut down the Dark Web?, which addresses the types of illegal activities on the Dark Web, explains challenges for law enforcement and discusses the difficulty in identifying Dark Web actors. Senior product manager of cyber analysis with IBM i2 Safer Planet, Bob Stasio, hosts the podcast. We found what one of the guests, Tyler Carbone, had to say quite interesting,
The parts of the internet we’re particularly interested in is where stolen information is posted and traded. What’s interesting is that that’s happening not through Tor…For what we’re interested in, a lot of stolen information is posted (traded and sold) on lite web sites — you can access them in Internet Explorer or Chrome. They’re just hosted in countries that aren’t particularly listed. One of the most well-known carding marketplaces…is hosted on a .cm….That’s not hidden within Tor at all. The problem is that individuals are logging in in an anonymous way so we can’t follow up with the individuals.
The line between the Surface Web and the Dark Web may be blurring or blurred. Ultimately, the internet is rooted in connection, so it’s hard to imagine clear separation between actors and activities being relegated to one or the other. We recommend giving this podcast a listen to ruminate on questions such as whether the Dark Web could and should be shut down.
Megan Feil, January 11, 2017
IBM and Its Five Year Vision: Nothing Like Vision Instead of Revenue
January 9, 2017
I read “IBM’s 5 Year Vision Focuses on New Technology for Visualizing the World.” The author is a Kevin Murnane who is the author of Nutrition for Cyclists: Eating and Drinking Before, During and After the Ride. Seems like excellent preparation for the low fat approach to IBM technology, doesn’t it?
The write up in the capitalist tool Forbes Magazine recycles information from “IBM 5 in 5. Five Innovations That Will Help Change Our Lives within Five Years: The Invisible Made Visible.” Now that’s a title designed for Web search engines.
The IBM write up identifies these technologies as life changers:
- Artificial intelligence like IBM Watson
- Superhero vision via “hyperimaging”
- Macroscopes
- Medical labs on a chip
- Smart sensors.
What I found interesting was this comment from the nutritionist:
People would be wise to listen when IBM talks about future technology. Their past achievements include the invention of floppy discs and hard drives, the relational database and SQL, Fortran, DRAM, the virtual machine, the ATM machine, magnetic stripe cards and the Universal Bar Code. Their employees have won five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science. IBM has a long history of looking forward, thinking big and accomplishing what they set out to do. If their future is like their past, IBM’s 5 in 5 will be more than pie in the sky.
Unfortunately the Nobel Prizes, the Turing Awards, the National Medals for Technology and the five National Medals of Science are not translating to top line revenue growth and juicy profits for stakeholders. IBM’s vision does not include expanding aggressively the i2-type technology at a time when IBM Federal Systems might be in for a a bit of Gotham shock.
Give me that old fashioned revenue growth, please. I am not sure that macroscopes and superhero vision can change how I see the company’s last fifteen quarterly reports. One does not get fit on a low calorie revenue diet, does one?
Stephen E Arnold, January 9, 2017
Now Watson Wants to Be a Judge
December 27, 2016
IBM has deployed Watson in many fields, including the culinary arts, sports, and medicine. The big data supercomputer can be used in any field or industry that creates a lot of data. Watson, in turn, will digest the data, and depending on the algorithms spit out results. Now IBM wants Watson to take on the daunting task of judging, says The Drum in “Can Watson Pick A Cannes Lion Winner? IBM’s Cognitive System Tries Its Arm At Judging Awards.”
According to the article, judging is a cognitive process and requires special algorithms, not the mention the bias of certain judges. In other words, it should be right up Watson’s alley (perhaps the results will be less subjective as well). The Drum decided to put Watson to the ultimate creative test and fed Watson thousands of previous Cannes films. Then Watson predicted who would win the Cannes Film Festival in the Outdoor category this year.
This could change the way contests are judged:
The Drum’s magazine editor Thomas O’Neill added: “This is an experiment that could massively disrupt the awards industry. We have the potential here of AI being able to identify an award winning ad from a loser before you’ve even bothered splashing out on the entry fee. We’re looking forward to seeing whether it proves as accurate in reality as it did in training.
I would really like to see this applied to the Academy Awards that are often criticized for their lack of diversity and consisting of older, white men. It would be great to see if Watson would yield different results that what the Academy actually selects.
Whitney Grace, December 27, 2016
Lucidworks Sees Watson as a Savior
December 21, 2016
Lucidworks (really?). A vision has appeared to the senior managers of Lucidworks, an open source search outfit which has ingested $53 million and sucked in another $6 million in debt financing in June 2016. Yep, that Lucidworks. The “really” which the name invokes is an association I form when someone tells me that commercializing open source search is going to knock off the pesky Elastic of Elasticsearch fame while returning a juicy payoff to the folks who coughed up the funds to keep the company founded in 2007 chugging along. Yep, Lucid works. Sort of, maybe.
I read “Lucidworks Integrates IBM Watson into Fusion Enterprise Discovery Platform.” The write up explains that Lucidworks is “tapping into” the IBM Watson developer cloud. The write up explains that Lucidworks has:
an application framework that helps developers to create enterprise discovery applications so companies can understand their data and take action on insights.
Ah, so many buzzwords. Search has become applications. “Action on insights” puts some metaphorical meat on the bones of Solr, the marrow of Lucidworks. Really?
With Watson in the company’s back pocket, Lucidworks will deliver. I learned:
Customers can rely on Fusion to develop and deploy powerful discovery apps quickly thanks to its advanced cognitive computing features and machine learning from Watson. Fusion applies Watson’s machine learning capabilities to an organization’s unique and proprietary mix of structured and unstructured data so each app gets smarter over time by learning to deliver better answers to users with each query. Fusion also integrates several Watson services such as Retrieve and Rank, Speech to Text, Natural Language Classifier, and AlchemyLanguage to bolster the platform’s performance by making it easier to interact naturally with the platform and improving the relevance of query results for enterprise users.
But wait. Doesn’t Watson perform these functions already. And if Watson comes up a bit short in one area, isn’t IBM-infused Yippy ready to take up the slack?
That question is not addressed in the write up. It seems that the difference between Watson, its current collection of partners, and affiliated entities like Yippy are vast. The write up tells me:
customers looking for hosted, pre-tuned machine learning and natural language processing capabilities can point and click their way to building sophisticated applications without the need for additional resources. By bringing Watson’s cognitive computing technology to the world of enterprise data apps, these discovery apps made with Fusion are helping professionals understand the mountain of data they work with in context to take action.
This sounds like quite a bit of integration work. Lucidworks. Really?
Stephen E Arnold, December 21, 2016
More Watson Cheerleading from a Former IBMer
December 20, 2016
I love content marketing. It seems so fresh, insightful, and substantive. Consider a write up about IBM Watson by a former IBMer turned consultant. I wonder, “Is Frank Palermo working for IBM Watson now as a rental?” I know that when you read “IBM Watson Points the Way to Our Cognitive Business Future”, you will realize how darned wonderful IBM Watson is. I believe that Watson is ahead of its time. On the other hand, perhaps Watson lags Google DeepMind by a teeny tiny bit.
In the write up, which strikes me as a touchstone of intellectual and journalistic integrity, I learned:
In the five years since Jeopardy, Watson has become pervasive in the world around us.
Yes, pervasive. Just like Android or Amazon. Well, almost.
I learned:
IBM has invested more than $15 billion in Watson. IBM is betting its 105-year-old future on Watson.
Okay, that’s quite a bit of money. In order for IBM to recover that money, Big Blue will have to crank out the $15 billion, plus interest, plus the ongoing costs of staff, infrastructure, consultants, PR professionals, etc. That works out to IBM’s need to have Watson deliver something on the order of 2.5 the $15 billion in the next year or two to get within sniffing distance of a pile of break even cash before stakeholders lose patience. How close is IBM to having a $6 or $7 billion dollar per year revenue stream from Watson? I don’t have any idea, and IBM does not offer a fully loaded Watson cost and revenue breakdown in its remarkable financial reports.
I learned that the president of IBM who wants to assist President Elect Trump apparently said at the WOW conference (oh, wow, WOW, is World of Watson):
IBM president and CEO Ginni Rometty opened her World of Watson keynote proclaiming that, “in five years, there is no doubt in my mind that cognitive computing will impact every decision. Bringing cognitive capabilities to digital business will change the way we work and help solve the world’s biggest problems.”
Perhaps. But I think the focus will be on IBM Federal Systems and its ability to retain its government work. IBM, like several other big time technology outfits, is involved with many projects; for example, the DCGS Army search and discovery system. Mr. Trump may make some changes to that program, which might add some urgency to the Watson making money thing.
I learned:
Everywhere you turn, Watson is now impacting and — in many cases — transforming businesses. Hundreds of millions of people are now impacted by Watson. By the end of next year, it will hit 1 billion people. Watson is interacting with 200 million consumers in shopping, insurance, banking services, education and let’s not forget: the weather.
What’s “everywhere” is IBM Watson PR. I am not sure it has had much, if any, impact here in Harrod’s Creek. IBM had an operation in Lexington, but that went south and now the new owners are from a foreign land. IBM used to make hardware, but that too has gone away. Now IBM generates wordage about IBM Watson.
I remember Jeopardy. I wonder if IBMers know much about post production and the scandal that tarnished TV game shows. That’s a $64,000 question, isn’t it.
Now the author of this piece is described as a person who:
brings more than 22 years of experience in technology leadership across a wide variety of technical products and platforms. Frank has a wealth of experience in leading global teams in large scale, transformational application and product development programs.
I liked the fact that the bio did not mention this factoid:
Frank worked at IBM in the Advanced Workstations Division, and took part in the PowerPC consortium with IBM, Motorola and Apple. He was also involved in the design of PowerPC family of microprocessors as well as architecting and developing a massive distributed client/server design automation and simulation system involving thousand of high-end clustered servers. Frank received several patents for his work in the area of microprocessor design and distributed client/server computing.
Objectivity? Nope, just the stuff that dreams are made of. I cannot wait until my content management system is powered by Watson. That will be a dream, a treat, a great day, and highly useful.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2016
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