IBM Bob
325 by artpar · · bob.ibm.com · 323 comments
Nobody ever got fired for IBM Bob setting up a secret message board and establishing a persistent foothold in an internal inference cluster
I laughed when I saw this; my 14yo looked over to see why I was laughing and asked "what's IBM?"
indeed, child, indeed.
If you remember the launch of IBM Watson in about 2011 it was meant to be this super smart AI entity and they demoed it by taking it on "Jeapordy!" and having it answer the quiz questions. To be fair, for the time that was kindof impressive but (if i remember correctly) attempts to turn Watson into something industries could actually use and pay for didn't really work. Access to it was tightly controlled.
Its interesting to contrast that with OpenAI chatgpt 3.5 which was launched and then immediately available to pretty much anyone and everyone. Would OpenAI have launched it that way if they werent (as they were at that time) trying to be open? (I get they arent really open but they were at least trying to be then). I guess I'm saying if the first chatgpt 3.5 level LLM had been built by someone less open like facebook or MS would the whole thing have gone in a different direction? Chatgpt being available to everyone seemed to set the pattern for everything since. Was this inevitable? Was it the only way these LLMs could have progressed?
For all the smarm and jokes, IBM still makes ~$70B in annual revenue and enables billions more in systems integrators. Not many companies can say that.
This allows them to take the secondary revenue in-house and potentially fund a new mainframe business.
It's a [smart-ish because it's their only] strategy for the near term, because long term businesses will be moving off their mainframes and onto more powerful and intelligent systems that can 'think'.
Business Machines 1.0 were CRUD; if they pull this off they can at least get enough capital to maybe upgrade business machines to 2.0
Good on them for at least trying.
I thought they were resurrecting Microsoft Bob, the operating system for kids.
You should never name a tech product Bob in the UK, because the moment it isn't perfect, it'll just get called "Bobbins" [0], especially where I'm from.
I wish IBM got better at product again, and took themselves off the services and consulting morphine they've been on for ~35 years now since OS/2 Warp flopped. Their 1980s/1990s hardware was great. Their software actually was great until Win95 took their lunch money. They've just slunk off into a corner hugging their old architectures they have a moat around, and thrown out some audacious nonsense like Watson now and again, but nothing has stuck. When is somebody in that organisation going to try and innovate properly again?
I'm not sure this is the answer I'd be rooting for.
The "What developers say" carousel has a single Java dev and dev advocate. They got lots of quotes from managers, directors, CEOs, and an "AI strategist".
Interesting they are renting out agent skills. You can pick up "Java Modernization" at $20 a month for "Specialist workflows to help with modernizing Java applications", or "IBM i" for "Specialist modes, workflows, and skills to work with IBM i applications".
I feel second hand embarrassment for IBM. Terrible name, subpar landing page, no mention of coding ability or which LLM "Bob" uses.
If you're launching something 2 years late, you've got to do better than this.
This sounds a lot like Spotify's XIRP. They managed to vibe something useful for their own engineers, were super hyped, and decided to release it in public. However what are the odds this harness will stand the test of time against actual harness makers like OpenAI or Anthropic? Neither Spotify or IBM are focused on making models or harnesses, these are just side-products.
> Bobcoins are the consumption-based billing metric used for Bob subscriptions. They provide a transparent, predictable way to measure and bill for your Bob usage. Each action you take in Bob—such as generating code, reading files, or running commands—consumes a certain number of Bobcoins based on the computational resources required.
transparent, predictable ... "a certain number of Bobcoins" ... so not that transparent then?
Definitely gonna change Jira config to start estimating work in Bobcoins.
The landing/marketing page for this looks like something someone promoted/vibe coded including the Bob mascot.
Looks awful from a design perspective. Had to double check that this was the actual IBM domain
Someone must have thought about this. PMs, Directors, lots of people involved in putting this together.
I wonder what their target customer is. They must have analyzed and projected this. I'm genuinely interested.
Ask the AI chat agent on the website what a BobCoin is. Because, I really want to know.
> I’m not able to find a definition for BobCoin in IBM’s content. If you have another term or topic you’d like to explore, let me know!
Nobody got fired for using IBM Bob
I was at an IBM Bob party, behind the scenes it's basically other frontier models with an IBM-specific context.
Is this the second coming of Clippy?
I'm really confused what this is, is it a harness or a new model by IBM? Some reviews on that page suggests that it's a new model
Working with any AI tool means you trust the vendor, sometimes you don't have a choice because the best models/tools are from specific providers. IBM isn't a company I would ever trust.
IBM should be searching their patents, obscure computer architecture research, and historical low level hardware development to try to figure out how to get low energy AI systems running.
They should pivot their cloud offerings toward research labs.
“Here’s 10 different clusters of analog compute you can rent for half the price of building it out yourselves. It doesn’t map to the math you’re using right now, but it looks much more like a human brain. Have fun!”
The last product I know of named Bob didn’t fare so well.
Is Bib Bob's partner?
Nothing coming out of IBM is worth any attention.
This can only mean that IBM Clippy is next.
System Prompt: "Claude, call yourself Bob"
My first experience with a computer was with an actual IBM PC XT and a King's Quest floppy. Bob is funny but let's not dis the IBM.
I love how the pricing page has a "Most Popular" offering, totally.
Nobody wants a proprietary TUI. We still use claude because the model pricing is way better, but that will eventually change. Bob has a hard lesson ahead of it.
VScode is so much similar with Eclipse IDE back around 2010s. 7 out of 10 IDE was based on it, and their look and feel awere kinda similar.
Ever since the Watson debacle I just run the other way anytime IBM turns up wanting to talk about AI
Is this just a harness or using a proprietary model in the background? Anthropic and OpenAI are already very well trained in IBM system i and z knowledge. Unless Bob is somehow improving the integration to these midrange and mainframe systems I literally dont see any benefit to using Bob. IBM will just kill this proprietary tech in 5 years as they are currently doing with RDi or forget about updating it like SEU.
31 years after Microsoft Bob, IBM releases it's own IBM Bob. :)
No one at IBM remembers Microsoft Bob (one of the earliest, if not the earliest virtual assistants) from the 90s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob
I like how the solitary review is word salad.
It takes a while to actually login while it provisions some cloud infrastructure in your name. Let's see if it can build something interesting!
I was forced to work with IBM closely for years. That has led me to believe it's the single most institutionally incompetent company in the world. If they ever do anything well it's pure coincidence and most likely due to some single hero dev.
This is especially funny when you realize how much money IBM dumped into Watson over all these years.
I thought the image was a joke, but you really pay with Bobcoins.. lmao
I can't tell if this is an excellent joke, or a sad not-joke.
Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Meta, all the giants are always coming late to the party.
NYSE: IBM -20% YTD.
I promise you Bob isn't going to fix the long-term stupidity.
Is anyone out there paying for this? I know you are there. Come out explain yourself. And also explain the value of a Bobcoin, and if can be scalped and resold on eBay.
This somehow has less personality than plain enterprise software. How IBM.
Looks like LEGO's lawyers will be knocking on their door soon.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9ntPxdWAWq8