Expert System

The goal of this lecture is to clarify
? Basic concepts behind expert systems
? knowledge representation,
? inference mechanisms,
? problem solving.
? techniques (knowledge engineering, rapid
prototyping) used to construct expert systems,
? tools used to construct expert systems.
According to Darlington:
“An expert system is a program that attempts to mimic human expertise by applying inference methods to a specific body of knowledge.”
?According to Turban:
“An expert system is a system that employs human knowledge captured in a computer to solve problems that ordinarily require human expertise.”
The term expert system is used in a seminal paper by Alan Turing in 1937 related to a study in AI.
?An Expert System (ES) is a computer program that reasons using knowledge to solve complex problems. (Feigenbaum, 1992)
?Traditionally, computers solve complex problems by arithmetic calculations; and the knowledge to solve the problem is only known by the human programmer.
Expert systems are different from traditional application programs in that their capability to deal with challenging real world problems through the application process that reflect human judgment and intuition.
Expert systems should not be confused with cognitive modeling programs, which attempt to simulate human mental architecture in detail. Expert systems are practical programs that use heuristic strategies developed to solve specific classes of problems.