What Next, Watson? IBM's A.I. to Help Doctors and Customer Service.

Now that the mild-toned Watson has demonstrated his dominance of Jeopardy, what comes next? IBM executives have entered discussions with major corporations to answer that exact question. In the near future, when you call in for technical support, the "person" you hear might be Watson instead of a worker in India.  I bet when many readers were watching Watson pwn on Jeopardy they didn't think his story would have much relevance to them.  Think again.  You might just run into Watson in some unexpected places. 

Watson's very first assignment will be to help doctors diagnose patients. The skills displayed on Jeopardy are actually highly transferable to a medical setting.  Doctors need to collect a list of symptoms and then come up with a possible diagnosis.  Now, Watson will help them.

The A.I. will next appear at help desks in stores or on the phone at technical support. Outsourced jobs are about to be outsourced again.

Watson's job performance will actually be superior to his appearances on Jeopardy due to one crucial difference.  He'll have access to the Internet at all times, probably able to collate and organize hundreds of thousands of search results into a coherent conclusion.

See you soon, robot buddy.