I briefly worked with a Watson team on a cool idea to map a person's 'knowledge space' (or probable knowledge space given their background) against Watson's knowledge space and guide them to relevant learning materials and journal articles and the like.
The idea was to save people time so they aren't rehashing stuff they know down pat or jumping ahead into material they cannot understand but, instead, find that next step into what they almost know. The idea from there would be to let them specify where they want to go and guide them, step by step, exposure by exposure, to that summit.
In a few days, it turned into Just Another News Article Recommendation Engine based on interest and similar profiles with other clients. Yawn.
The idea was to save people time so they aren't rehashing stuff they know down pat or jumping ahead into material they cannot understand but, instead, find that next step into what they almost know. The idea from there would be to let them specify where they want to go and guide them, step by step, exposure by exposure, to that summit.
In a few days, it turned into Just Another News Article Recommendation Engine based on interest and similar profiles with other clients. Yawn.