Over Rated?

There is an explosion of AI related products. One of the most significant is Watson, the IBM entry which continually gets great praise. STAT has published an excellent piece worth reading by anyone concerned.

The article concludes:

While not specific to Watson’s health care products, the report said potential clients are backing away from the system because of significant consulting costs associated with its implementation. It also noted that Amazon has 10 times the job listings of IBM, which recently didn’t renew a small number of contractors that worked for the company following its acquisition of Truven, a company it bought for $2.6 billion last year to gain access to 100 million patient records. In its statement, IBM said that the workers’ contracts ended and that it is continuing to hire aggressively in the Cambridge, Mass.-based Watson Health and other units, with more than 5,000 positions open in the U.S. But the outlook for Watson for Oncology is challenging, say those who have worked closest with it. ...the lead trainer at Memorial Sloan Kettering, said the system has the potential to improve care and ensure more patients get expert treatment. But like a medical student, Watson is just learning to perform in the real world. “Nobody wants to hear this,” ... said. “All they want to hear is that Watson is the answer. And it always has the right answer, and you get it right away, and it will be cheaper. But like anything else, it’s kind of human.”

 Medicine is complex, and especially cancer care. No patient is the same. It is not only the pathology but the patient's approach to the disease. Even in such centers such as MSKCC there are a multiplicity of treatments. Also even the current immunotherapy treatments may work 40% of the time. Why the 40% and why not the 60% is the question without an answer.

IBM used to be a service company, selling hardware and software services. It then morphed into a consulting company, a real service business. One wonders just what business they are in now.

This is an article well worth the reading.