IBM Watson battles Hollywood robot stereotypes with Carrie Fisher and Ridley Scott

It's not easy out there for a hyper-intelligent supercomputer.

Generations of sentient Hollywood robots with world dominating aspirations have stoked apprehension about computers eventually becoming too smart to bother with the human race anymore.

And even with his friendly human name and genial tone, IBM worries that its supercomputer Watson might still face misconceptions among the public at large.

Big Blue plays on this idea while showing off Watson's impressive smarts at the same time in the company's first-ever Oscars commercials, set to debut during the broadcast of the Academy Awards this Sunday.

"We all have a preconceived idea of artificial intelligence largely from Hollywood and we love it," said IBM Watson chief marketing officer Stephen Gold. "There's growing familiarity with Watson but I think there's still a need to educate about this current generation of computing systems."

In one, Carrie Fisher is leading a support group for nefarious-minded robots who are fed up with humans. When Watson, a well-adjusted personable presence who actually likes people, chimes in with his own story, the other robots understandably roll their eyes.

In the second, Watson and acclaimed sci-fi director Ridley Scott riff with one another over how to create cool film visuals. Watson says he is scanning images for factory managers, salespeople and healthcare professionals ("Not exactly movie material," Scott advises) and then suggests that a healthcare professional might be played by The Martian's Matt Damon.

"You're learning, kid," Scott says approvingly.

More than shedding robots stereotypes, the campaign, created by IBM's agency Ogilvy and Mather, is meant to remind people that Watson is capable of more than just beating hapless humans on Jeopardy. IBM says the computer's cognitive power is widely applicable across a range of industries including healthcare, banking and tech.

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