The Challenges of Information Overload

Quantitative Methods and Visualizations

An expansion of the utilization of foundation models into modalities that go beyond mere text may also assist organizations grappling with information overload. In some cases, such utility could augment, if not outright supersede, that of summarization. Instead of getting a verbal synopsis of a document, for example, the system could produce what Allen referred to as quantitative methods. “

Documents have all kinds of tabular data, figures, etc.,” Allen pointed out. “There’s all sorts of data in there, and, yes, you could get a summary of it. But wouldn’t it be much more powerful if there was a full analysis of that data and it was maybe fed into a machine learning model to help you understand that data?” Similarly, models can also output visualizations from such analysis of documents, which engenders the inherent benefit of decreasing the amount of words users must sift through. Both of these approaches are alternatives to traditional summarization, which actually just acts as a compression mechanism for a single modality: text.

The End of Information Overload

Although there are several causes of information overload, the very desire to seek out information to navigate a business course, action, or decision ultimately has to do with risk. Users want to be sure they’re taking the safest, smartest action. Information is scrutinized to determine what that is, given the myriad circumstances that affect the business climate of any vertical. The end goal is to diminish uncertainty about that decision or action. Granted, identifying the juncture where enough information has been obtained to take a defensible course of action may not always be simple.

However, “At a certain level, you’ll have enough information because the marginal value of information to either identify the risk exposure has fallen below the cost of getting that extra information, or you’ve explored a sufficient amount of that solution space, the unknown unknowns, that the cost of going further, or the amount of information you’re getting for your exploration, doesn’t justify the cost of getting that additional information,” Allen stated.

Will there every be an actual end to information overload? After all, it’s been long-standing complaint and only seems to be intensifying. Relief, in the form of surfacing only relevant information, customizing summarization, aligning curation and automation with business goals, and instating visualization, lies ahead.