Watson is a Question-Answering system that competed against
the two most successful former champions in the US TV quiz-show Jeopardy!, and
won. Since the televised exhibition match in February 2011, the Watson research
team has been engaged in adapting the technology for applications, in particular health care. This has entailed not only changes to internal
components and structures, but a wholesale change to the problem-solving
process and interface to the user. In this talk John M. Prager, IBM T.J. Watson
Research Center, will discuss the ways in which both the original and “medically-enhanced”
Watson learns, understands and explains itself. Prager will also illustrate how
the human-Watson interaction is evolving into one much more like a partnership,
a good example of the new paradigm of Cognitive Computing.
Light refreshments will be served.
