Self-Learning: Just Another Way to Say 'AI'

I try to stay on top of the latest buzzwords in computing. Really I do. But no matter how forward thinking I am, it turns out I'm always a little behind the curve. Take Computational Ecology, for instance. New to me, but yesterday's digital fishwrap to those in the computational ecology business.

And now there's "self-learning software." I don't know about you, but to me that says "artificial intelligence." But since no one wants to use the term "AI" anymore, self-learning software will have to do. Of course, "self-learning software" also has another meaning, as in software that you use to teach yourself something like mathematics. In this sense, self-learning software has been around for more than a decade, at least according to papers such as A Comparison of Authoring Software for Developing Mathematics Self-Learning Software Packages.

What brought all this to my attention is IBM's new self-learning software that automatically categorizes large volumes of information, making it easier to find, access, and use. The IBM Classification Module for OmniFind Discovery Edition provides a platform for managing classification of content archiving -- compliance solutions, e-mail management, content-centric business process management solutions, taxonomy management, and the like.

The content classification software automatically learns and interprets the meaning of unstructured text such as in documents, e-mails, and customer interactions -- in real-time, making content classification more precise. The software understands words, linguistics, semantics, and context of the language as well as associated metadata. The self-learning classification software becomes more accurate over time without requiring human adjustment.

Interestingly, the OmniFind Discovery Edition is enabled for Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) environments and can deliver content classification as a service to any content-centric application, helping automate processes and decision-making to determine how a piece of content should be used. For example, the classification technology can be called upon as a service by business process management software to identify a piece of content and determine if it should be used in a legal compliance review workflow based on the content and context of the document. It can also classify e-mails for online contact center applications to automatically prioritize certain customer situations over others.

With the ability to understand linguistics, semantics, and the context of information, the Classification Module lets you analyze unstructured and semi-structured content and metadata, allowing previously untapped information to be quickly and precisely classified so it can be more effectively found and reused. The content can be classified within existing taxonomies or the system can even propose new taxonomies, making content easier to manage and retrieve and reducing the need for manual categorization.

So here's what I self-learned: This sure sounds like AI to me.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 09:48 AM  Permalink