Internal IBM documents show that its Watson supercomputer often spit out erroneous cancer treatment advice and that company medical specialists and customers identified “multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations” as IBM was promoting the product to hospitals and physicians around the world.
The documents — slide decks presented last summer by IBM Watson Health’s deputy chief health officer — largely blame the problems on the training of Watson by IBM engineers and doctors at the renowned Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The software was drilled with a small number of “synthetic” cancer cases, or hypothetical patients, rather than real patient data. Recommendations were based on the expertise of a few specialists for each cancer type, the documents say, instead of “guidelines or evidence.”
STAT has seen portions of the two presentations, from June and July of 2017. At the time, they were shared widely with the management of IBM’s Watson Health division. The documents contain scathing assessments of the Watson for Oncology product by customers and conclude that the “often inaccurate” recommendations raise “serious questions about the process for building content and the underlying technology.”
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