Watson - A new era of computing

© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation

IBM Watson

A New Era of Computing

César Diniz Maciel

Executive IT Specialist

IBM Global Techline – US

[email protected]



Cognitive computing – an ancient human desire

AI and Cognitive computing research since the 60seliza (1964-1969)– First attempt at Natural Language Processing (NLP)

First program to claimed to pass the Turing test HAL 9000 – true thinking computer from “2001: A Space Odissey”LCARS - “The Computer” from Star Trek

Several areas of expertise related to the fieldNeural networksFuzzy logicIBM Neurosynaptic chip

Natural Language Processing is a highly sought capability for computer systems


Changing password

• Computer: Password expired, enter new password.

• User: tomato

• Computer: Password too short, try again.

• User: redtomato

• Computer: Weak password, try again.

• User: 1redtomato

• Computer: Password must have an upper case letter. Try again.

• User: 1RedTomatoDamnComputer

• Computer: Password must not start with numbers. Try again

• User: IWillStickThis1TomatoinYourFaceStupidComputer

• Computer: Password too long. Try again....


Watson is ushering in a new era of computing

TabulatingSystems Era

ProgrammableSystems Era

CognitiveSystems Era

1900 1950 2011


Watson is cognitive computing

6

Understandsnatural language

Generates andevaluates hypotheses

Adaptsand learns

Watson understands me.

Watson engages me.

Watson learns and improves over time.

Watson helps me discover.

Watson establishes trust.

Watson has endless capacity for insight.

Watson operates in a timely fashion.


7

Decision Maker

Search Engine

Finds Documents containing KeywordsFinds Documents containing Keywords

Delivers Documents based on PopularityDelivers Documents based on Popularity

Has QuestionHas Question

Distills to 2-3 KeywordsDistills to 2-3 Keywords

Reads Documents, Finds AnswersReads Documents, Finds Answers

Finds & Analyzes EvidenceFinds & Analyzes Evidence

Expert

Understands QuestionUnderstands Question

Produces Possible Answers & EvidenceProduces Possible Answers & Evidence

Delivers Response, Evidence & ConfidenceDelivers Response, Evidence & Confidence

Analyzes Evidence, Computes ConfidenceAnalyzes Evidence, Computes Confidence

Asks NL QuestionAsks NL Question

Considers Answer & EvidenceConsiders Answer & Evidence

Decision Maker

The difference between Search Engine and DeepQA



How does it work?

• Watson is based on a powerful computing platform running specialized algorithms.

• Watson is an application of advanced Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, and Machine Learning technologies to the field of open-domain question answering. At its core, Watson is built on IBM's DeepQA technology for hypothesis generation, massive evidence gathering, analysis, and scoring.

• Behind the application, Watson runs on POWER processor-based systems. The Watson that played Jeopardy was composed of 90 Power 750 systems in cluster. It runs SuSE Linux

• Watson runs multiple threads to perform its evaluation of the question and compose the answer. These threads can be paralelized, which allowed the execution to go from 2 hours on a single core to 3 seconds on the cluster.


• A workload optimized system

• 90 x IBM Power 750 servers

• 2880 POWER7 cores

• POWER7 3.55 GHz chip

• 500 GB per sec on-chip bandwidth

• 10 Gb Ethernet network

• 15 Terabytes of memory

• 20 Terabytes of disk, clustered

• Can operate at 80 Teraflops

• Runs IBM DeepQA software

• Scales out with and searches vast amounts of unstructured information with UIMA & Hadoop open source components

• Linux provides a scalable, open platform, optimized to exploit POWER7 performance

• 10 racks include servers, networking, shared disk system, cluster controllers


• This means Watson…

• Operates at 80 teraflops. The human brain is estimated to have a processing power of 100 teraflops (100 trillion operations per second).

• Has the equivalent in memory (RAM) that the Library of Congress adds in books and media over a 4 month period

• Can process 200 million times more instructions per second than the Space Shuttle’s computers.

• Parses within 3 seconds the equivalent of the number of books on a 700 yard long book shelf…and pick out the relevant information, and create an answer.


THE Watson


InitialQuestion

DeepQA: the technology & architecture behind Watson

HypothesisGeneration

Hypothesis & Evidence

Scoring

Final Confidence Merging & RankingSynthesis

Question & Topic Analysis


Hypothesis and Evidence Scoring

Learned Modelshelp combine and

weigh the Evidence

Evidence Sources

Answer Scoring

Deep Evidence Scoring

EvidenceRetrieval

Answer Sources

PrimarySearch

CandidateAnswer

Generation

QuestionDecomposition


Hypothesis and Evidence Scoring

model

model

model

model

model

model

model

model

model

Answer &Confidence


Example of DeepQA analysis

This fish was thought to be extinct millions of years ago until one was found off South Africa in 1938. Category: ENDS IN "TH" Answer: Coleacanth (Google got this one right)

When hit by electrons, a phosphor gives off electromagnetic energy in this form.Category: General ScienceAnswer: Photon (Google found the articles commenting on Watson answering this question :-)

Secretary Chase just submitted this to me for the third time--guess what, pal. This time I'm accepting it. Category: Lincoln BlogsAnswer: His resignation (again, Google had no clue)



Watson in the business

Watson Engagement Advisor - May 21st

Watson Engagement Advisor announced Cross-industry and cross-geography play

January April July October

First Two Commercial OfferingsFebruary 8 th

First 2 healthcare products were announced with MSK and WellPoint

2014

Watson EcosystemNovember 14th Watson Ecosystem

announced Driving innovation and

fostering new possibilities

Watson Healthcare Update – Oct. 18MD Anderson launches Expert Oncology Advisor powered by WatsonWatson used to bridge clinical practice and medical research



What is the benefit to customers?

Transforming industries and professions.

Advancing cognitive computing across the enterprise.

Delivering the cognitive experience to the users, enabling better interaction, more efficient answers and providing better value.


Watson in healthcare

A data-rich, societally important field helping Watson change how medicine is:

Taught Cleveland Clinic

ResearchedMD Anderson

PracticedMemorial Sloan-Kettering

Paid WellPoint


Expert systems in healthcare

Automation in medical diagnostics is an area of research with deep impacts to mankind.

Studies in this area started in the 50s

“Reasoning Foundations of Medical Diagnosis”, Ledley and Lusted, July 1959

Automation of diagnosis based on matching keys (symptoms) and attributes (diseases)


(Sad) facts about healthcare

• Medicine is still full of unexplained cases and situations. Rare diseases, unknown processes of infection, lack of understanding of how the body interacts with chemical components in drugs, etc.

• Medical knowledge is increasing a lot, but the ability of a doctor to absorb the relevant information does not increase at the same pace (they are humans, after all).

• In some situations, the lack of conclusive research, or the speed of changes in the field makes it hard to physicians to be at optimal performance– Cancer research is an area where advanced research is being done, with great success in some

areas and dismal results in others. And sometimes the highly specificity of a particular cancer makes it harder to spread knowledge on diagnosis or treatment.

– “Lung cancer causes more deaths than the next three most common cancers combined (colon, breast and pancreatic). An estimated 159,260 Americans are expected to die from lung cancer in 2014, accounting for approximately 27 percent of all cancer deaths.” American Cancer Society, Cancer Facts & Figures 2014

– The average successful diagnosis rate of lung cancer by oncologists is 50%.


“IBM's Watson is better at diagnosing cancer than human doctors”

• “According to Sloan-Kettering, only around 20 percent of the knowledge that human doctors use when diagnosing patients and deciding on treatments relies on trial-based evidence. It would take at least 160 hours of reading a week just to keep up with new medical knowledge as it's published, let alone consider its relevance or apply it practically.

Watson's ability to absorb this information faster than any human should, in theory, fix a flaw in the current healthcare model. Wellpoint's Samuel Nessbaum has claimed that, in tests, Watson's successful diagnosis rate for lung cancer is 90 percent, compared to 50 percent for human doctors.”http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-02/11/ibm-watson-medical-doctor



Know meLeverage profile data for personalized insight into client wants and needs to contextualize experience

Client

Watson can transform the way people interact over the lifetime of their relationship

Empower MeInteractive, informed natural

language dialogue that enables insights at the point of action

Engage meDynamic, evidence-based omni-channel experiences

that adapt to client preferences


Watson Engagement Advisor

Helps organizations improve how they answer their clients’ needs

25

Engage under-engaged clients

Grow top-line revenue

Improve bottom line results



Breakthrough insights are critical across research, clinical and commercial functions

• What new ways could we target this disease pathway?

• What evidence exists on the way this protein could be modified to inhibit that gene’s activity?

Lead & Drug DiscoveryLead & Drug Discovery

• How can we quickly identify if this compound has a toxicity issue?

• Can we identify this compound’s major adverse events prior to in vivo testing?

Safety & Toxicity Assessment

Safety & Toxicity Assessment

• Are there reasons for the early safety signals that we can quickly identify?

• Can we gain insight into the factors that may be contributing to side effects?

PharmacovigilancePharmacovigilance

• Does this drug have an effect on the pathway of another disease?

• Are there similarities in the structure of this new compound to those being used in other therapeutic areas?

Drug RepurposingDrug Repurposing

• What populations are likely to benefit most from this intervention?

• How do these ten treatments compare across thousands of trials?

Comparative Effectiveness / Clinical Trial Design

Comparative Effectiveness / Clinical Trial Design

• What do early studies of competitors reveal about their efficacy and safety?

• How are competitors’ trial designs related to the strengths of their efficacy/safety profile?

Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive Intelligence

Watson Discovery Advisor



29

The Watson Ecosystem is composed of mutually benefiting, interconnected partners

Talent Partners

Content Partners

App PartnersDevelop cognitive powered applications powered by IBM Watson

Fuel the ecosystem with content to drive cognitive applications

Support application partners with developing and designing their solutions

Watson Developer

Cloud

Watson Content

Store

Watson TalentHub


Watson in the cloud


Beta services available now with more in plan

Visualization RenderingGraphical representations of data analysis for easier understanding

User ModelingPersonality profiling to help engage users on their own terms.

Language IdentificationIdentifies the language in which text is written

Machine TranslationTranslate text from one language to another.

Concept ExpansionMaps euphemisms to more commonly understood phrases

Message ResonanceCommunicate with people with a style and words that suits them

Question and AnswerDirect responses to users inquiries fueled by primary document sources

Relationship ExtractionIntelligently finds relationships between sentences components

Coming

• Concept Analytics• Question Generation• Speech Recognition• Text to Speech• Tradeoff Analytics• Medical Information Extraction• Semantic Expansion• Policy Knowledge• Ontology Creation• Q&A in other languages• Policy Evaluation• Inference detection• Social Resonance• Answer Assembler• Relationship identification• Dialog• Machine Translation (French)• Smart Metadata• Visual Recommendation• Industry accelerators

Available today


…Helps me discover fresh insights• Predictive and content analytics to

uncover patterns not yet known• Interactive exploration across all data

…Operates in a timely fashion• Real-time analytics as data flows through an organization • Enterprise-class Hadoop that runs 4x faster • In-memory computing for speed of thought analytics

…Establishes trust so I can act with confidence• Governance across complete data lifecycle including Hadoop• Security and privacy with compliance• Transparency and context to decision-making process

WATSON FOUNDATIONS

DecisionManagement

Planning &Forecasting

Discovery &Exploration

Business Intelligence & Predictive Analytics

ContentAnalytics

Information Integration & Governance

Data Mgmt &Warehouse

HadoopSystem

StreamComputing

Content Management

WATSON FOUNDATIONS

DecisionManagement

Planning &Forecasting

Discovery &Exploration

Business Intelligence & Predictive AnalyticsBusiness Intelligence & Predictive Analytics

ContentAnalytics

Information Integration & Governance

Data Mgmt &Warehouse

HadoopSystem

StreamComputing

Content Management

Watson Foundations uniquely…


Chef Watson

Cognitive Cooking - http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/cognitivecooking/


Chef Watson

Test-drive Chef Watsion - http://www.bonappetit.com/people/our-readers/article/beta-test-chef-watson


35

Explores

Reasons

Visualizes

Watson’s intelligence and capabilities are expanding


IBM Neurosynaptic chip

http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/brain-chip.shtml


This will be Watson

Sees

Hears

Experiences

Understands natural language

Generates and evaluates hypotheses

Adapts and learns

Reasons

Explores

Visualizes



Technology

Watson - A new era of computing