Knowledge Nuggets

This article by Mark Stephen Meadows provides an interesting look at the next stage of challenges in designing better ways for humans and machines to communicate. Sci-fi fans who are interested in the future of Artificial Intelligence may want to read more about Mr. Meadow’s insights. I’ve found the topic to provide great inspiration for ideas on what the future may hold and perhaps, how we should approach design of this technology. Check this article out and see where your mind takes you!

My own mind trail took me back to the design of language processing for an artificial system…

Per Wikipedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a field of computer science, artificial intelligence, and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human (natural) languages. The intent of NLP seems to be to find a better way for computers to understand human, natural language inputs.

To enhance knowledge management systems in organizations, I’ve been looking into the importance of language use strategy to enhance communication. While there is much to review on this topic, I’ve settled on beginning with effective communication through word choices among teams. This influences the design of IT systems which support those teams.

Some of my own novice level writings on this subject covered the following,

“A controlled vocabulary (CV) deserves attention from data administrators in any operational environment since a CV is essential to perform the search and retrieval activities required of effective communication and knowledge transfer. This is especially true among human-to-machine communication where at least one side of an exchange (for now I say it is only the human side) must apply their own tacit knowledge of the subject to choose terms for searching and for qualifying a search result. The effectiveness of these exchanges depends on the degree of similarity in the choice of term made by the indexer and the choice forwarded by the searcher. A CV is an effective method of improving the similarities of indexer and searcher choices, thereby enhancing communication.”

One (among many) difficulty in designing a vocabulary for machines to use when communicating with humans via natural language would be: Keeping the language relevant. A CV must reflect all the world views of it’s users for the time in which it is to be used. Now, given that people’s views on ANY given subject are constantly changing; design teams must continually update CVs to maintain their usefulness

These comments draw from the author’s research on the topic and further details on cited resources/references can be found at: https://www.academia.edu/10325048/Considerations_For_The_Creation_Of_A_Vocabulary_For_Knowledge_Sharing