Yes. What makes Watson exciting is that it can understand text well enough to prepare the text as inputs for expert systems; in medicine, for example, most expert systems needed an expert as I/O, and so they were of limited usefulness.
Watson is also backed by a huge corporation, which makes it easier to surmount obstacles like "but doctors don't like competition."
Watson is also backed by a huge corporation, which makes it easier to surmount obstacles like "but doctors don't like competition."
On the other hand being a huge corporation makes it harder to surmount "relying on marketing hype to inflate the value-added of the product."
At any rate, the company I work for relies heavily on Cognos and the metrics there seem pretty arbitrary--Hocus pocus to conjure simple numbers so directors can pretend they're making informed decisions and not operating on blind guesswork and vanity....And to ration...
OK, so it covers only a few human occupations:
But the list is steadily growing.
Now, connect it with a self-driving AI, and your cab e-driver can make small talk, advise on a suspicious skin lesion, evaluate your investment portfolio and help you fix an issue with your smartphone, all while cheaply and efficiently getting you to your destination.
How long until it can evaluate verbal or written customer requirements and write better routine software than your average programmer?