The challenge of teaching AI to understand tacit workplace knowledge
By
The Economist
Summary
This article discusses the challenges of teaching AI to understand how people work within companies. It notes that AI performs best when it understands operational context, which can be partly codified through explicit rules or captured by analyzing raw data from enterprise systems. The piece highlights Celonis, a German software firm that ingests enterprise system data to map processes like invoices and procurement. The article hints at the deeper issue that tacit knowledge—the unwritten, experiential know-how that people bring to their jobs—is vital and difficult to codify for AI systems.
Source
Key quotes
· 3 pulledArtificial intelligence works best within companies when it knows the context in which it is operating.
Some of that context is easy to codify upfront, in explicit rules and guidelines.
Tacit knowledge is vital to many jobs
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