Why are information management and AI even in the same sentence? It's an interesting question. What's the relationship? Well, the answer is simple: there is no AI without information.
Let's think about ChatGPT, because that's the one that most people are familiar with. ChatGPT is a generative AI tool, but what does it do? It goes and harvests publicly available information to produce new content. It reads existing content or information that is publicly available, uses algorithms to come up with new ways of disseminating that information, and generates or produces that new content for you.
Information Management Practitioners: Crucial for AI Success
The next obvious question is; do you need information management practitioners to make AI work? Absolutely! In fact, I would say that information managers, as the custodians of information and content within an organization, are the crucial piece to AI success. The reason for that is that we are the ones who control the management of that information. So if generative AI relies on information, it stands to reason that the management of that information is crucial in its success!
If generative AI tools are reading content that is out of date, hasn't been updated, is just plain wrong, or consists of unfinished drafts, there are some serious issues with the quality of what our AI is giving back to us. Information management practitioners play a key role in data quality and integrity.
Quality and integrity are the two things that are essential when we're looking at AI output. We need to be able to ensure that the information we're basing generative AI on is of high-quality, but then we also need to ensure its integrity. Can we trace back to where it came from? Can we say this document has some generative AI content within it?
The Importance of Traceability
Imagine if something goes before a legislative body, like the U.S. Congress or Parliament of Australia, and decisions are made based on the information presented. Time passes and we realize that the information wasn't right. It’s in high stakes use cases like that where traceability becomes vital. Did the information presented come from a reputable source? Were there biases in the data presented? This is where information managers have a really significant role to play.
As AIIM President & CEO Tori Miller Liu, CIP points out, information managers are the connective tissue between the output and the original source. They ensure that AI reaches its full potential by managing the quality and integrity of the information it's built upon. AI and information management are inextricably linked, and information managers are key to making sure AI succeeds.
