Generative AI like ChatGPT is truly exciting, and it's easy to be seduced by the technology's potential to produce, well, almost any sort of output. The opportunity in generative AI is enormous but requires careful analysis of where the best applications lie. Healthcare, in particular, requires this assessment – this isn't an industry known for fast change, and the risks of inappropriately deploying new technology can be huge. For instance, consider the hype around IBM's Watson Health a few years ago; this AI was going to figure out complex cancers! It didn't, and it was sold off cheaply in parts last year. This includes what people need to stop doing in order to start embracing the new solution.

In 2009, Hiroshi Kobayashi, a scientist from the Tokyo University of Science, presented the world's first robotic teacher Saya. According to Kobayashi, machines are better than human teachers. The AI-powered robot knows the answers to all questions – it monitors and analyzes childs' behavior to individualize the learning process and support their hidden talents. This utopian vision of education has a lot to do with healthcare. Of course, nobody would like to be treated by artificial intelligence (AI) wearing a doctor's coat – like no parent would prefer a robot over a human teacher.

IBM Watson is a brilliant idea that failed in the marketplace. After being acquired and changing its name to Merative, will it win at the AI and IoT health game going forward?

IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna says it offloaded Watson Health this year because it doesn't have the requisite vertical expertise in the healthcare sector. Talking at stock market analyst Bernstein's 38th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference, the big boss was asked to outline the context for selling the healthcare data and analytics assets of the business to private equity provider Francisco Partners for $1 billion in January. "Watson Health's divestment has got nothing to do with our commitment to AI and tor the Watson Brand," he told the audience. The "Watson brand will be our carrier for AI." Two examples of tech still nested under the brand include Watson Order, which is being rolled out at a number of drive-thrus at fast food chain McDonald's to automate order taking; and Watson AI Ops, which is designed to make IT operations more efficient. "So then why divest Watson Health?" asked Krishna.

Multiple times over the last decade, this column has covered the issue of the importance of data quality in decision making, both by executives as well as machines. Back in 2014, when the "big data" craze was mesmerizing the C-Suite, the warning was issued in Big Data and the Madness of Crowds. More recently in How Bad Data Is Undermining Big Data Analytics from December 2020. Since then, more and more news has emerged regarding the failures of AI and Machine Learning initiatives with the blame given to faulty data as the reason. The recent demise of IBM Watson Health is the latest example.

Scientists marked the 1970s and 1990s as two distinct "AI winters," when sunny forecasts for artificial intelligence yielded to gloomy pessimism as projects failed to live up to the hype. IBM sold its AI-based Watson Health to a private equity firm earlier this year for what analysts describe as salvage value. Artificial intelligence has been with us longer than most people realize, reaching a mass audience with Rosey the Robot in the 1960s TV show "The Jetsons." This application of AI--the omniscient maid who keeps the household running--is the science fiction version. In a healthcare setting, artificial intelligence is limited.

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At one time IBM Watson Health was featured in articles that claimed it might cure cancer. But the splashy coverage of IBM's artificial intelligence brand aimed at the healthcare industry was maybe an instance when the hype about a particular technology -- AI -- got ahead of that technology's actual capabilities. After a few high-profile public failures over the past several years, IBM has announced that it is selling the parts of its Watson Health business to private equity firm Francisco Partners -- a sale that many in the industry had expected for the past year. The assets sold include data sets and products from the many acquisitions IBM completed to roll into the Watson Health brand including Health Insights, MarketScan, Clinical Development, Social Program Management, Micromedex, and imaging software. Francisco Partners will employ key members of the Watson Health team and stand up its own business in the future, the companies said in the announcement of the deal.

Opinion It started in Jeopardy and ended in loss. IBM's flagship AI Watson Health has been sold to venture capitalists for an undisclosed sum thought to be around a billion dollars, or a quarter of what the division cost IBM in acquisitions alone since it was spun off in 2015. Not the first nor the last massively expensive tech biz cock-up, but isn't AI supposed to be the future? Isn't IBM supposed to be good at this? It all started so well.

Most likely, you're familiar with Watson from the IBM computer system's appearance on Jeopardy! in 2011, when it beat former champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rudder. Watson Health was supposed to change health care in a lot of important ways, by providing insight to oncologists about care for cancer patients, delivering insight to pharmaceutical companies about drug development, helping to match patients with clinical trials, and more. It sounded revolutionary, but it never really worked. Recently, Watson Health was, essentially, sold for parts: Francisco Partners, a private equity firm, bought some of Watson's data and analytics products for what Bloomberg News said was more than $1 billion. On Friday's episode of What Next: TBD, I spoke with Casey Ross, technology correspondent for Stat News, who has been covering Watson Health for years, about how Watson went from being the future of health care to being sold for scraps.