Amid all the conversations about how AI is revolutionizing work—making everyday tasks more efficient and repeatable and multiplying the efforts of individuals—it’s easy to get a bit carried away: What can’t AI do?
Despite its name, generative AI—AI capable of creating images, code, text, music, whatever—can’t make something from nothing. AI models are trained on the information they’re given. In the case of large language models (LLMs), this usually means a big body of text. If the AI is trained on accurate, up-to-date, and well-organized information, it will tend to respond with answers that are accurate, up-to-date, and relevant. Research from MIT has shown that integrating a knowledge base into a LLM tends to improve the output and reduce hallucinations. This means that AI and ML advancements, far from superseding the need for knowledge management, actually make it more essential.
