Intelligent Assistants for Knowledge and Information Resources Management

Abstract

Work in Artificial Intelligence on knowledge based technology has produced a variety of practical applications while data management systems are used in almost every commercial enterprise of any significant size. Despite the advances in both data base and knowledge base technologies there is still a large gap between the capabilities of these tools and the "paperwork and information explosion" that faces modern society. Concern with this information access problem in the United States has lead to the creation of the new field of Information Resources Management and to Federal laws and executive orders aimed at reducing paperwork and promoting more effective management of information. In this paper we outline the nature of this information management problem and describe certain AI and database technology that may help to close this information access gap. We introduce the notion of "Intelligent Assistants" for Information Resources Management(IRM) and describe how work on current approaches to "Knowledge Management" may lead to the technology necessary for the eventual creation of such intelligent assistants.