It may be tough for some Americans to find a job these days but IBM’s supercomputer dubbed Watson has already got a new gig. Debuting on Jeopardy recently, IBM introduced Watson to the world as the new grand champion of the game after beating both Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter who held the show’s titles for most consecutive games won and highest dollar amount won.
IBM began creating Watson in the mid ‘00s as a project in communication. Using algorithms it sought to pull information from a large base of information based on key phrases targeted in casual speech to form answers to questions posed. Or in the case of Jeopardy, asking questions correctly correlating to the answers stated. Because of the broad range of knowledge and use of language and nuance in the clues, Jeopardy would be the perfect arena for IBM to challenge their new wave of information integration.
The Jeopardy challenge was a success and Watson, a room sized computer full of servers and not the tablet personification represented behind the podium wound up winning over $70,000 to charity. IBM hopes the same concept that beat its human opponents to the buzzer can help humanity with a job in healthcare as a physician’s assistant of sorts.
Partnering with Nuance Communications which develops speech recognition, voice authentication, text-to-speech and VoiceXML based voice-browsing products and development tools; IBM hopes to see Watson succeed as a tool to process patient information. Whether it would be collecting data from less than coherent emergency room patients, providing better bedside attention in combat situations or assisting where medical staff is in short supply the possibilities are endless.
Some may worry that health care will be doled out by a computerized kiosk in the future but Watson is not aimed at replacing human interaction between patient and practitioner. It’s yet another tool doctors would have to bridge the gap of one of the most common obstacles they face in administering proper treatment, communication. By breaking down the barrier and speeding up the access to relevant information, physicians will hopefully make better decisions which can lead to better results.
By Heather Fairchild - Heather is a multimedia developer with experience in web, film, photography and animation as well as traditional fine arts like painting and sculpting. In addition to writing for CommunicationsJobsBlog.net, she is co-founder of design and promotion company, Creative Kazoo with fellow Nexxt blogger, Staci Dennis. Heather’s spare time consists of making puppets, teaching Sunday School, building Legos and doing science experiments with her children.
Become a member to take advantage of more features, like commenting and voting.
Register or sign in today!