The Inescapable Duality of Data and Knowledge

We will discuss how over the last 30 to 50 years, systems that focused only on data have been handicapped with success focused on narrowly focused tasks, and knowledge has been critical in developing smarter, intelligent, more effective systems. We will draw a parallel with the role of knowledge and experience in human intelligence based on cognitive science. And we will end with the recent interest in neuro-symbolic or hybrid AI systems in which knowledge is the critical enabler for combining data-intensive statistical AI systems with symbolic AI systems which results in more capable AI systems that support more human-like intelligence.