Expert Systems and Artificial Intelligence

Expert Systems be data processor programs that argon derived from a branch of computer science research c completelyed Artificial watchword (AI). AIs scientific name and address is to ascertain intelligence by building computer programs that exhibit intelligent behavior. It is concerned with the concepts and methods of symbolic evidence, or debate, by a computer, and how the familiarity utilise to make those inferences allow for be equal at bottom the machine. Of course, the term intelligence covers many cognitive skills, including the ability to solve problems, learn, and understand language AI addresses all of those.But most progress to eon in AI has been made in the commonwealth of problem resolve concepts and methods for building programs that reason about problems rather than calculate a solution. AI programs that achieve safe-level competence in solving problems in task areas by bringing to bear a body of cognition about loticular proposition tasks are called friendship-based or technical carcasss. Often, the term full systems is reserved for programs whose knowledge base contains the knowledge used by human adroits, in secernate to knowledge gathered from textbooks or non- honests.More practically than not, the two terms, happy systems (ES) and knowledge-based systems (KBS), are used synonymously. Taken together, they represent the most widespread persona of AI application. The area of human intellectual endeavor to be captured in an expert system is called the task domain. Task refers to some goal-oriented, problem-solving activity. Domain refers to the area within which the task is being performed. Typical tasks are diagnosis, planning, scheduling, configuration and design. An compositors incident of a task domain is aircraft crew scheduling, discussed in Chapter 2.Building an expert system is known as knowledge engineering and its practitioners are called knowledge engineers. The knowledge engineer mustiness make sure that the computer has all the knowledge needed to solve a problem. The knowledge engineer must choose one or more forms in which to represent the demand knowledge as symbol patterns in the memory of the computer that is, he (or she) must choose a knowledge way. He must as well as ensure that the computer can use the knowledge efficiently by selecting from a handful of reasoning methods. The practice of knowledge engineering is expound later.We first describe the components of expert systems. The Building Blocks of Expert Systems Every expert system consists of two principal parcels the knowledge base and the reasoning, or inference, engine. The knowledge base of expert systems contains both factual and heuristic knowledge. real knowledge is that knowledge of the task domain that is astray shared, typically tack together in textbooks or journals, and commonly agreed upon by those knowledgeable in the particular field. Heuristic knowledge is the less rigorous, more experienti al, more judgmental knowledge of performance.In contrast to factual knowledge, heuristic knowledge is seldom discussed, and is largely individualistic. It is the knowledge of good practice, good judgment, and plausible reasoning in the field. It is the knowledge that underlies the art of good guessing. Knowledge representation formalizes and organizes the knowledge. One widely used representation is the production figure, or simply rule. A rule consists of an IF part and a THEN part (also called a condition and an action). The IF part lists a watch of conditions in some logical combination.The piece of knowledge represented by the production rule is relevant to the force of reasoning being developed if the IF part of the rule is satisfied consequently, the THEN part can be concluded, or its problem-solving action taken. Expert systems whose knowledge is represented in rule form are called rule-based systems. Another widely used representation, called the building block (also kn own as frame, schema, or list structure) is based upon a more passive view of knowledge. The unit is an assemblage of associated symbolic knowledge about an entity to be represented.Typically, a unit consists of a list of properties of the entity and associated set for those properties. Since every task domain consists of many entities that stand in motley relations, the properties can also be used to specify relations, and the values of these properties are the names of other units that are linked according to the relations. One unit can also represent knowledge that is a special case of some other unit, or some units can be parts of another unit. The problem-solving model, or paradigm, organizes and controls the steps taken to solve the problem.One common except powerful paradigm involves chaining of IF-THEN rules to form a line of reasoning. If the chaining starts from a set of conditions and moves toward some conclusion, the method is called forward chaining. If the conclusi on is known (for example, a goal to be achieved) but the path to that conclusion is not known, then reasoning backwards is called for, and the method is backward chaining. These problem-solving methods are built into program modules called inference engines or inference procedures that manipulate and use knowledge in the knowledge base to form a line of reasoning.The knowledge base an expert uses is what he learned at school, from colleagues, and from years of arrive. Presumably the more experience he has, the larger his store of knowledge. Knowledge allows him to interpret the information in his databases to advantage in diagnosis, design, and analysis. Though an expert system consists primarily of a knowledge base and an inference engine, a couple of other features are worth mentioning reasoning with uncertainty, and explanation of the line of reasoning. Knowledge is almost ever incomplete and uncertain.To deal with uncertain knowledge, a rule may arrive associated with it a co nfidence factor or a weight. The set of methods for utilise uncertain knowledge in combination with uncertain data in the reasoning process is called reasoning with uncertainty. An primal subclass of methods for reasoning with uncertainty is called hirsute logic, and the systems that use them are known as fuzzy systems. Because an expert system uses uncertain or heuristic knowledge (as we humans do) its credibility is often in question (as is the case with humans).When an answer to a problem is questionable, we ply to want to know the rationale. If the rationale seems plausible, we tend to believe the answer. So it is with expert systems. Most expert systems have the ability to answer questions of the form wherefore is the answer X? Explanations can be generated by tracing the line of reasoning used by the inference engine (Feigenbaum, McCorduck et al. 1988). The most important ingredient in any expert system is knowledge.The power of expert systems resides in the specific, h igh-quality knowledge they contain about task domains. AI researchers will continue to explore and add to the current repertoire of knowledge representation and reasoning methods. But in knowledge resides the power. Because of the importance of knowledge in expert systems and because the current knowledge acquisition method is slow and tedious, overmuch of the future of expert systems depends on breaking the knowledge acquisition obstruct and in codifying and representing a large knowledge infrastructure.