Layman’s terms: Natural language generation is using AI technology to explain complex data in simplified manner
Interview with Lyndsee Manna, a leader of strategic partnerships and global business at Arria NLG
Big Data has a problem of equally large proportions: It’s flying over heads.
But an AI-driven technology (with an acronym that might sound no less complicated) is actually bringing data insights back down to earth. It’s called natural language generation, or NLG.
“A lot of times, knowledge is locked inside of a small group of people who are experts in their field, those who are trained to understand and analyze data,” said Lyndsee Manna, a leader of strategic partnerships and global business at Arria NLG plc.
Not to mention, she added, the way these scientists sometimes convey information lacks one of the primary features that humans have always relied on to share ideas: storytelling. And that’s what this NLG technology is able to do. It tells stories by automatically writing out — “in plain English,” as Morristown-based Arria’s website describes it — explanations of data that an analyst would otherwise have to translate for you.
Why’s telling a story in writing better than something like a pie chart for understanding data?
Manna gave this example: In the wealth management sector, if you looked at a chart showing the stocks that are the largest contributors to your portfolio’s performance, it might not tell you that there’s a thin sliver representing a stock you only own one share of that rose more than 500%. That’s newsworthy; it’s also not something you can visually see.
Arria is one of four of the main players — (story continues...)