IBM Watson Reportedly Recommended Cancer Treatments That Were 'Unsafe and Incorrect'

Internal company documents from IBM show that medical experts working with the company's Watson supercomputer found "multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations" when using the software, according to a report from Stat News. Stat reviewed documents that were included in two presentations given in June and July 2017 by IBM Watson's former deputy health chief Andrew Norden. The documents were reportedly shared with IBM Watson Health management. According to Stat, those documents provided strong criticism of the Watson for Oncology system, and stated that the "often inaccurate" suggestions made by the product bring up "serious questions about the process for building content and the underlying technology." One example in the documents is the case of a 65-year-old man diagnosed with lung cancer, who also seemed to have severe bleeding.