IS AI IT?

IT stands for Information Technology, and we have just learned that AI is a knowledge technology. So, where does that leave us?

 

I hope you got a sense when you read the opportunities that AI can create for you, that is something beyond what IT is capable of. But how is AI different from conventional IT? You can choose three different approaches:

 

The three different angles are illustrated in the picture above. There is no professional consensus on which of the three is the right approach.

 

But, hopefully, I’ve managed to convince you that AI is so different from IT that you choose to look at it as an independent technological discipline, because what one can do with AI professionally, the way AI is created, and the philosophies behind the thinking are so different that you are best served by viewing AI as something other than IT.

 

So, that’s why AI and IT are treated as two different elements in this book. You will see examples of IT and AI working together, but they do so on different terms, such as AI making decisions on what an IT system should do, for example, send out emails. So, the two technologies coexist, but they have to be seen as different disciplines. AI’s potential is at a higher level because AI is fundamentally based on automated processing of knowledge while IT is based on automated processing of data and information.

 

And how far AI could come as technology is the subject of the next section, which is about the future of Artificial Intelligence.

Is AI IT? That is a relevant question to ask. At first glance, you could choose to look at AI as a branch of IT. But is that a correct point of view? This article gives you in the information you need to make up your own mid on the matter.

The discussion of data, information and knowledge naturally open up the question:

Is AI IT?

IT stands for Information Technology, and AI is a knowledge technology. So where does that put us?

But how different is AI compared to conventional IT? You can choose three different approaches:

The three different angles are illustrated in the picture above. There is no professional consensus on which of the three is the right approach.

But, hopefully, I’ve managed to convince you that AI is so different from IT that you choose to look at it as an independent technological discipline. Because what one can do with AI professionally, the way AI is created, and the philosophies behind the thinking are so different that you are best served by viewing AI as something other than IT.

So that’s why AI and IT are treated like two different elements in this blog. You will see examples of IT and AI working together. But they do so on different terms. Such as AI making decisions on what an IT system should do. For example, send out emails. So the two technologies coexist, but they have to be seen as different disciplines. AI’s potential is at a higher level because AI is fundamentally based on automated processing of knowledge, where IT is based on automated processing of data and information.
And how far AI could come as technology is the subject of this page, which is about the future of artificial intelligence.