# Chapter 11 Managing Knowledge and Artificial Intelligence
Which of the following is the first value-adding step of information system activities in the knowledge management value chain?
Which of the following involves where, when, and how to apply knowledge?
Which of the following statements best describes the relationship between collaboration and knowledge management?
The text defines as flows of events or transactions captured by an organization's systems.
The text defines as expertise of organizational members that has not been formally documented.
Which of the following statements is not an accurate description of the importance of knowledge to a firm?
What is meant by the statement "knowledge is sticky"?
Which of the following is not one of the main four dimensions of knowledge described in the chapter?
Changing organizational behavior by sensing and responding to new experience and knowledge is called:
What is the second value-adding step in information system activities in the knowledge management value chain?
The set of business processes, culture, and behavior required to obtain value from investments in information systems is one type of:
Which of the following are the three major types of knowledge management systems?
Specialized systems that enable scientists and engineers to create and discover new knowledge for a company are called:
Which of the following statements about knowledge is not true?
Informal social networks of professionals and employees within and outside the firm who have similar work-related activities and interests are called communities of:
All of the following are intangible assets of a firm except its:
COPs can make it easier for people to reuse knowledge.
Knowledge is conditional.
One apt slogan of the knowledge management field is "Effective knowledge management is 80 percent technological and 20 percent managerial and organizational."
The impacts of knowledge-based investments are easy to measure.
Document management systems are essentially large databases.
Briefly define the term knowledge management. What types of knowledge might a company such as a taxi service have, and how could a taxi service benefit from knowledge management?
Answer
Knowledge management is the set of processes developed in an organization to create, gather, store, disseminate, and apply the firm's knowledge. Knowledge management increases the ability of the organization to learn from its environment and to incorporate knowledge into its business processes. A taxi company's knowledge might include both explicit knowledge, such as maps and routes between destinations, and tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge would include the experience of drivers, such as the best alternate routes between destinations or passenger needs. A taxi service might benefit from a system that gave drivers guides on routes that included alternate routes drivers had found. It might also benefit from an enterprise-wide knowledge management system such as a learning management system (LMS) that trained drivers for locations, destinations, and alternate routes.
- Briefly outline the information system and management and organizational activities in a knowledge management value chain as it might apply to the online catalog system of a public library.
Answer
Information system activities in a knowledge management value chain for an online catalog system of a public library include:
Acquisition: for an online catalog of a library this would be getting the book classification and identification data into digital format.
Storage: This would involve system for storing this data, such as a content management system.
Dissemination: The library would need to determine how the card catalog information is accessed by the public or by staff, for example via a portal or search engine.
Application: This would involve the online catalog becoming part of the library's business processes: for example, the card catalog would be linked to a system of borrowing, so that users would know from the card catalog whether a book was out on loan.
Management and organizational activities: This would involve various enabling activities, such as the development of new organizational routines at the library, training of library workers, and the creation of new IT-based processes or services, such as using the system with a card catalog base for other services, perhaps linking up to a wider library system to share resources, information, or book loaning between systems.
- Identify the three major types of knowledge management systems. Provide two examples of each.
Answer
The major types of knowledge management systems are enterprise-wide knowledge management systems, knowledge work systems (KWS), and intelligent techniques.
Enterprise-wide knowledge management systems include: enterprise content management (ECM) systems, collaboration and social tools, and learning management systems (LMS).
Types of KWS include: computer-aided design (CAD) systems, and virtual reality (VR) systems.
Intelligent techniques include: data mining, expert systems, machine learning, neural networks, natural language processing, computer vision systems, robotics, genetic algorithms, and intelligent agents.
- What is a community of practice, and how do they make it easier for people to reuse knowledge?
Answer
A community of practice (COP) is an informal social network of professionals and employees within and outside the firm who have similar work-related activities and interests. The activities of these communities include self-education and group education, conferences, online newsletters, and day-to-day sharing of experiences and techniques to solve specific work problems. Many organizations, such as IBM, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, and the World Bank, have encouraged the development of thousands of online communities of practice. These communities of practice depend greatly on software environments that enable collaboration and communication. COPs can make it easier for people to reuse knowledge by pointing community members to useful documents, creating document repositories, and filtering information for newcomers. COP members act as facilitators, encouraging contributions and discussion. COPs can also reduce the learning curve for new employees by providing contacts with subject matter experts and access to a community's established methods and tools. Finally, COPs can act as a spawning ground for new ideas, techniques, and decision-making behavior.
- What are the four dimensions of knowledge?
Answer
The four dimensions of knowledge are that it is a firm asset, it has different forms, it has a location, and it is situational. Knowledge is a firm asset, although it is intangible, and its value to the firm increases as more people share it. The different forms of knowledge are tacit (knowledge residing in the minds of a firm's employees that has not been documented) or explicit (codified), and involves know-how, craft, and skill as well as how to follow procedures and why things occur. Knowledge is generally believed to have a location, either in the minds of humans or in specific business processes. Knowledge has both a social and individual basis, and is "sticky", and enmeshed within a firm's culture. Finally, knowledge is situational, meaning it is dependent on context, and knowing when to apply a procedure is just as important as knowing the procedure itself.
Which of the following statements about genetic algorithms is not true?
Which of the following is an intelligent personal assistant?
Apple's Siri application is an example of which of the following?
An inference engine is:
Which of the following is not true about the evolution of AI technologies?
Which of the following is not a major benefit of expert systems?
Which of the following statements about expert systems is not true?
An expert system would be an appropriate application for making decisions for all of the following except:
Which of the following statements about machine learning is not true?
Supervised machine learning involves:
Unsupervised machine learning involves:
Neural networks:
Which of the following has a hidden layer that processes inputs?
Which of the following best describes a difference between neural networks and genetic algorithms?
Genetic algorithms:
Software programs that work without direct human intervention to carry out specific tasks for individual users, business processes, or software applications, are called:
All of the following are examples of machine learning except:
Deep learning networks:
The seminal research effort often referred to as "The Cat Paper" involved which of the following?
Which of the following statements about natural language processing (NLP) is not true?
GumGum's system relies on which of the following?
A chatbot is an example of which of the following?
In an expert system, the set of rules that models human knowledge is called:
A(n) is a type of intelligent technique that finds patterns and relationships in massive data sets too large for a human to analyze.
Which of the following statements about robotics is not true?
Some commentators believe which of the following comes closest to the "Grand Vision" of AI?
Which of the following statements about neural networks is not true?
An expert system cannot consider multiple rules at the same time.
Expert systems capture the knowledge of skilled employees in the form of a set of rules in a software system that can be used by others in the organization.
Expert systems use real-time data to guide their decisions.
Expert systems work by applying a set of decision cases against a knowledge base, both of which are extracted from human experts.
Neural networks are not well-suited for diagnostic systems in medicine.
Deep learning neural networks are used almost exclusively for pattern detection on unlabeled data.
Some intelligent agent systems are capable of learning from experience and adjusting their behavior.
Neural network applications explain why they arrive at a particular solution.
AI applications are used by search engines and social networks to target ads.
Facebook's DeepFace is an example of a computer vision system.
Babies have a huge computational advantage over even the biggest machine language research systems.
What is the difference between a neural network and a genetic algorithm? Which would be most useful to an organization of astronomers analyzing gamma ray emissions reaching Earth?
Answer
A neural network attempts to emulate the processing patterns of the biological brain. The result is a program that can "learn" by comparing solutions to known problems to sets of data presented to it. Neural networks are used for solving complex, poorly understood problems for which large amounts of data have been collected. Genetic algorithms are problem-solving methods that use the model of living organisms adapting to their environment. Possible solutions are evaluated, the "best" choices are made, then more possible solutions are created by combining the factors involved in those first "best" choices and choosing again. The process continues until an optimum solution is reached. These genetic algorithms are useful for finding the optimal solution for a specific problem by examining a very large number of alternative solutions for that problem. Student answers as to which would be most useful to an organization of astronomers analyzing gamma ray emissions reaching Earth will vary. One answer is: A neural network would be of most use because of its ability to analyze large amounts of data and find hidden relationships.
- What are the differences between human intelligence and artificial intelligence?
Answer
Human intelligence relies on an estimated 86 billion neurons (brain cells), each with thousands of connections to other neurons (synapses), and over 100 trillion total connections in its network (the brain). Modern human beings have been "programmed" (by nature) for an estimated 300,000 years, and their predecessors for 2.5 million years. In contrast, AI uses machine learning techniques (including statistics), and very large arrays of computers, to identify patterns in very large databases. AI systems lack the flexibility, breadth, and generality of human intelligence. Today's AI techniques are applicable in a very limited number of situations where there are very large databases and computing facilities, most desired outcomes are already defined by humans, and the output is binary (0,1), yes/no, or classifying photos as either cats or other. Alan Turing defined an artificially intelligent computer program as one that a human could have a conversation with and not be able to tell it was a computer. Today's AI systems do not yet meet this criterion, because we still cannot have a genuine conversation with a computer AI system because it has no genuine understanding of the world, no common sense, and does not truly understand humans. Nevertheless, AI systems can be enormously helpful to humans and business firms.
- What is a chatbot and how are they used in business?
Answer
Chatbots (chatterbots) are software agents designed to simulate a conversation with one or more human users via textual or auditory methods. They try to understand what you type or say and respond by answering questions or executing tasks. Chatbots are typically used in systems for customer service or information acquisition. For example, UK package delivery firm Hermes created a chatbot called Holly to help its call center handle customer service inquiries. The chatbot helps customers track shipments, change delivery orders, update account preferences, and handle other essential tasks quickly. Facebook has integrated chatbots into its Messenger messaging app, so that any outside company with a Facebook brand page can interact with Facebook users through the chat program. Today's chatbots perform very basic functions. As chatbots become more technologically advanced, people will increasingly use these conversational agents for interacting with IT systems.
- How do machine learning systems like neural networks actually "learn"?
Answer
Machine learning systems based on neural networks do not learn like human beings learn. Humans use billions of neurons and connections called synapses to sense, learn, and store information. Instead, machine learning systems like neural networks are pattern-detection software-based programs that use thousands of connected nodes to discern patterns in very large datasets by sifting through the data, and ultimately finding pathways through the network of thousands of nodes. There may be millions of paths through this network. The question is: which of these paths produces a satisfactory result, e.g., identify cancer tumors. Once this path, or collection of paths, is discovered after thousands or millions of runs through the data, it is said to have "learned" how to identify tumors. In practice, for some tumors, machine learning can produce results nearly as good as, or even better than, humans.
- Describe some of the ways we use machine learning technologies every day.
Answer
Machine learning is omnipresent in modern technology. More than 75 percent of AI development today involves some kind of machine learning accomplished by neural networks, deep learning networks, and genetic algorithms. For instance, PayPal uses machine learning algorithms to identify patterns of fraud. Facebook uses machine learning technologies to deliver targeted advertising. Very large Internet consumer firms, including Amazon, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, Tencent, Netflix, and Baidu, use similar machine learning algorithms. Netflix recommendations for TV and movies to watch are generated using machine learning based on your prior purchases and online behavior. Natural language processing algorithms are typically based on machine learning, including deep learning. Computer vision systems, robotics, and some intelligent agents also use machine learning.
knowledge exists in formal documents, as well as in formal rules that organizations derive by observing experts and their decision-making behaviors.
Which of the following types of system enables organizations to digitize, index, and tag structured and unstructured knowledge and documents according to a coherent framework?
All of the following are typical components or capabilities of an ECM system except:
Which of the following would not be considered semistructured knowledge?
Which of the following statements about an ECM system is not true?
You are advising a video production company on the best type of knowledge management system to help them archive digital video and sound clips. Which of the following will best suit their needs?
A MOOC is:
Which of the following provides tools for the management, delivery, tracking, and assessment of various types of employee learning?
A key problem in managing knowledge is the creation of a(n) to organize the information into meaningful categories.
Coca-Cola uses a in order to classify, store and distribute all the images of the brand.
MOOCs are designed to serve a limited number of participants.
According to experts, at least 80 percent of an organization's business content is semistructured or unstructured.
Semistructured information is all the knowledge in a firm that resides in the heads of experienced employees.
How can knowledge be gathered from the personal and undocumented expertise of professionals within a firm?
Answer
Some of the knowledge businesses need is not in the form of a digital document but instead resides in the personal and undocumented expertise of professionals within the firm. Contemporary enterprise content management systems, along with systems for collaboration and social business, have capabilities for locating experts and tapping their knowledge. These include online directories of corporate experts and their profiles with details about their job experience, projects, publications, and educational degrees, and repositories of expert-generated content. Specialized search tools make it easier for employees to find the appropriate expert in a company.
- You have been hired by a small architectural firm interested in implementing a knowledge management system. What features do you think would be of most benefit to them?
Answer
Student answers will vary. Useful features include the ability to store structured and semistructured documents, such as plans, blueprints, and email; collaboration tools; the ability to reference up-to-date local or national building codes; and a system for storing case studies, best practices, and corporate standards. Also of importance is a KWS or CAD system to aid in engineering and design.
Which of the following statements about 3-D printing is not true?
All of the following are considered to be knowledge workers except:
CAD workstations:
Which of the following would not be classified as a KWS?
VR systems:
Which of the following seeks to enhance human perception by combining a live direct view of the physical world with computer-generated images?
Which of the following statements about augmented reality is not true?
3-D printers can produce fully functioning components, such as working batteries and LEDs.
CAD and virtual reality are both types of KWS.
Knowledge workers include all of a company's workers who are tasked with managing or creating knowledge, from top-level scientists to clerical and data workers.
Knowledge work systems require strong links to external knowledge bases.
Today's 3-D printers can create objects out of human cartilage.
The yellow first-down markers shown on televised football games are examples of AR.
Describe the typical characteristics of knowledge workers and the roles they play within a firm. Why are knowledge workers so important to the digital firm? What are their functions and which of these do you feel is most critical to the success of the firm? Why?
Answer
Knowledge workers include researchers, designers, architects, scientists, and engineers who primarily create knowledge and information for the organization. Knowledge workers usually have high levels of education and memberships in professional organizations and are often asked to exercise independent judgment as a routine aspect of their work. For example, knowledge workers create new products or find ways of improving existing ones. Student answers as to why knowledge workers are so important to the digital firm will vary. One example answer is: Without knowledge workers, the firm would stagnate and become less competitive in an environment that is always changing and increasingly competitive. In the modern economy, knowledge is truly power.
- What are three important qualities or capabilities of a KWS?
Answer
A KWS must give knowledge workers the specialized tools they need, such as powerful graphics, analytical tools, and communications and document-management tools. These systems require sufficient computing power to handle the sophisticated graphics or complex calculations necessary for such knowledge workers as scientific researchers, engineers, and product designers. Because knowledge workers need knowledge from the external world, these systems also must give the worker quick and easy access to external databases. A KWS must also provide a user-friendly interface. These interfaces save time by allowing the user to perform needed tasks and get to required information without spending a lot of time learning to use the system. A KWS must be carefully designed to optimize the performance of the specific tasks of the pertinent knowledge worker.
- Discuss the concept of virtual reality, especially with regard to its applications in the business arena.
Answer
Virtual reality (VR) systems have visualization, rendering, and simulation capabilities that go far beyond those of conventional CAD systems. VR systems use interactive graphics software and hardware to create computer-generated simulations that are so close to reality that users almost believe they are participating in a real-world situation. The original applications were in gaming, but new uses in education, science, and business are being developed and have great promise. For example, Volkswagen Group has been experimenting with virtual reality to speed up vehicle design and development and to identify potentially costly design problems earlier in the development cycle. Volkswagen has been able to cut out costly physical prototypes and replace them with immersive, 360-degree views of digitally constructed interior and exterior components of a vehicle using virtual reality HTC Vive headsets. Virtual components of a car, including interior and exterior parts such as buttons, lights, or consoles, can be switched out and replaced easily with a few lines of software code during the design process.
