Artificial intelligence (AI)

 

                                                                    

Abstract

Is it possible yto automate human intelligence. It is very difficult but not impossible. The subject that deals with such difficult tasks is AI.      

Expert systems are meant to solve real problems, which normally would require a specialised human expert

Today's expert systems deal with domains of narrow specialization. For expert systems to perform competently over a broad range of tasks, they will have to be given very much more knowledge. ... The next generation of expert systems ... will require large knowledge bases. How will we get them?

           

The paper gives a brief description of AI, its tasks and techniques and also shows you how a computer-based expert system emulates the behavior of a human advisor, presents terminology unique to the field and introduces the activities that must be accomplished to build expert systems.

           

Designing of expert systems, issues in designing of expert systems are described.

We have to develope a set of guidelines to determine whether a problem is suitable for an expert system solution or not. Such guidelines are clearly mentioned.

 Expert systems have many applications. These have been used to solve a wide range of problems in domains such as medicine, mathematics, engineering, geology, computer science, business, law, defence, and education. Within each domain, they have been used to solve problems of different types. Types of problem involve diagnosis (e.g., of a system fault, disease or student error); design (of a computer systems, hotel etc); and interpretation (of, for example, geological data)

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a broad field, and means different things to different people. It is concerned with getting computers to do tasks that require human intelligence. However, having said that, there are many tasks which we might reasonably think require intelligence - such as complex arithmetic - which computers can do very easily. Conversely, there are many tasks that people do without even thinking - such as recognising a face - which are extremely complex to automate. AI is concerned with these difficult tasks, which seem to require complex and sophisticated reasoning processes and knowledge.

People might want to automate human intelligence for a number of different reasons. One reason is simply to understand human intelligence better. For example, we may be able to test and refine psychological and linguistic theories by writing programs which attempt to simulate aspects of human behaviour. Another reason is simply so that we have smarter programs. We may not care if the programs accurately simulate human reasoning, but by studying human reasoning we may develop useful techniques for solving difficult problems.

AI is a field that overlaps with computer science rather than being a strict subfield. Different areas of AI are more closely related to psychology, philosophy, logic, linguistics, and even neurophysiology. However, as this is a CS course we'll emphasise the computational techniques used, and put less emphasis on psychological modelling or philosophical issues. We'll just briefly touch on some of the widely discussed philosophical issues below:

Some AI Tasks

Human intelligence involves both ``mundane'' and ``expert'' reasoning. By mundane reasoning we mean all those things which (nearly) all of us can routinely do (to various abilities) in order to act and interact in the world. This will include:

·        Vision: The ability to make sense of what we see.

·        Natural Language: The ability to communicate with others in English or another natural language.

·        Planning: The ability to decide on a good sequence of actions to achieve your goals.

·        Robotics: The ability to move and act in the world, possibly responding to new perceptions.

By expert reasoning I mean things that only some people are good at, and which require extensive training. It can be especially useful to automate these tasks, as there may be a shortage of human experts. Expert reasoning includes:

·        Medical diagnosis.

·        Equipment repair.

·        Computer configuration.

·        Financial planning.

Expert Systems are concerned with the automation of these sorts of tasks.

AI research is concerned with automating both these kinds of reasoning. It turns out, however, that it is the mundane tasks that are by far the hardest to automate.

AI Techniques

There are various techniques that have evolved that can be applied to a variety of AI tasks. These techqniques are concerned with how we represent, manipulate and reason with knowledge in order to solve problems.

Knowledge representation

Search

Artificial Intelligence And Expert Systems

Expert Systems are computer programs that are derived from a branch of computer science research called Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI's scientific goal is to understand intelligence by building computer programs that exhibit intelligent behavior. It is concerned with the concepts and methods of symbolic inference, or reasoning, by a computer, and how the knowledge used to make those inferences will be represented inside 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 date in AI has been made in the area of problem solving -- concepts and methods for building programs that reason about problems rather than calculate a solution.

AI programs that achieve expert-level competence in solving problems in task areas by bringing to bear a body of knowledge about specific tasks are called knowledge-based or expert systems. Often, the term expert systems is reserved for programs whose knowledge base contains the knowledge used by human experts, in contrast to knowledge gathered from textbooks or non-experts. More often than not, the two terms, expert systems (ES) and knowledge-based systems (KBS), are used synonymously. Taken together, they represent the most widespread type 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.

Building an expert system is known as knowledge engineering and its practitioners are called knowledge engineers. The knowledge engineer must 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 required knowledge as symbol patterns in the memory of the computer -- that is, he (or she) must choose a knowledge representation. He must also ensure that the computer can use the knowledge efficiently by selecting from a handful of reasoning methods. The practice of knowledge engineering is described later. We first describe the components of expert systems.

The Building Blocks of Expert Systems

Every expert system consists of two principal parts: the knowledge base; and the reasoning, or inference, engine.

The knowledge base of expert systems contains both factual and heuristic knowledge.

Factual knowledge is that knowledge of the task domain that is widely shared, typically found in textbooks or journals, and commonly agreed upon by those knowledgeable in the particular field.

Heuristic knowledge is the less rigorous, more experiential, more judgmental knowledge of performance. In contrast to factual knowledge, heuristic knowledge is rarely 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 rule, 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 set of conditions in some logical combination. The piece of knowledge represented by the production rule is relevant to the line 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 unit (also known 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 values for those properties.

Since every task domain consists of many entities that stand in various 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 another 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. An example will be given later.

One common but 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 conclusion 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 experience. 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 always incomplete and uncertain. To deal with uncertain knowledge, a rule may have associated with it a confidence factor or a weight. The set of methods for using uncertain knowledge in combination with uncertain data in the reasoning process is called reasoning with uncertainty. An important subclass of methods for reasoning with uncertainty is called "fuzzy 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 tend 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: "Why is the answer X?" Explanations can be generated by tracing the line of reasoning used by the inference engine.

The most important ingredient in any expert system is knowledge. The power of expert systems resides in the specific, high-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, much of the future of expert systems depends on breaking the knowledge acquisition bottleneck and in codifying and representing a large knowledge infrastructure.

Knowledge engineering is the art of designing and building expert systems, and knowledge engineers are its practitioners. Gerald M. Weinberg said of programming in The Psychology of Programming: "'Programming,' -- like 'loving,' -- is a single word that encompasses an infinitude of activities." Knowledge engineering is the same, perhaps more so. We stated earlier that knowledge engineering is an applied part of the science of artificial intelligence, which, in turn, is a part of computer science. Theoretically, then, a knowledge engineer is a computer scientist who knows how to design and implement programs that incorporate artificial intelligence techniques. The nature of knowledge engineering is changing, however, and a new breed of knowledge engineers is emerging.

Today there are two ways to build an expert system. They can be built from scratch, or built using a piece of development software known as a "tool" or a "shell." Before we discuss these tools, let's briefly discuss what knowledge engineers do. Though different styles and methods of knowledge engineering exist, the basic approach is the same: a knowledge engineer interviews and observes a human expert or a group of experts and learns what the experts know, and how they reason with their knowledge. The engineer then translates the knowledge into a computer-usable language, and designs an inference engine, a reasoning structure, that uses the knowledge appropriately. He also determines how to integrate the use of uncertain knowledge in the reasoning process, and what kinds of explanation would be useful to the end user.

Next, the inference engine and facilities for representing knowledge and for explaining are programmed, and the domain knowledge is entered into the program piece by piece. It may be that the inference engine is not just right; the form of knowledge representation is awkward for the kind of knowledge needed for the task; and the expert might decide the pieces of knowledge are wrong. All these are discovered and modified as the expert system gradually gains competence.

The discovery and cumulation of techniques of machine reasoning and knowledge representation is generally the work of artificial intelligence research. The discovery and cumulation of knowledge of a task domain is the province of domain experts. Domain knowledge consists of both formal, textbook knowledge, and experiential knowledge -- the expertise of the experts.

Tools, Shells, and Skeletons

Compared to the wide variation in domain knowledge, only a small number of AI methods are known that are useful in expert systems. That is, currently there are only a handful of ways in which to represent knowledge, or to make inferences, or to generate explanations. Thus, systems can be built that contain these useful methods without any domain-specific knowledge. Such systems are known as skeletal systems, shells, or simply AI tools.

Building expert systems by using shells offers significant advantages. A system can be built to perform a unique task by entering into a shell all the necessary knowledge about a task domain. The inference engine that applies the knowledge to the task at hand is built into the shell. If the program is not very complicated and if an expert has had some training in the use of a shell, the expert can enter the knowledge himself.

Although shells simplify programming, in general they don't help with knowledge acquisition. Knowledge acquisition refers to the task of endowing expert systems with knowledge, a task currently performed by knowledge engineers. The choice of reasoning method, or a shell, is important, but it isn't as important as the accumulation of high-quality knowledge. The power of an expert system lies in its store of knowledge about the task domain -- the more knowledge a system is given, the more competent it becomes.

Bricks and Mortar

The fundamental working hypothesis of AI is that intelligent behavior can be precisely described as symbol manipulation and can be modeled with the symbol processing capabilities of the computer.

In the late 1950s, special programming languages were invented that facilitate symbol manipulation. The most prominent is called LISP (LISt Processing). Because of its simple elegance and flexibility, most AI research programs are written in LISP, but commercial applications have moved away from LISP.

In the early 1970s another AI programming language was invented in France. It is called PROLOG (PROgramming in LOGic). LISP has its roots in one area of mathematics (lambda calculus), PROLOG in another (first-order predicate calculus).

PROLOG consists of English-like statements which are facts (assertions), rules (of inference), and questions. Here is an inference rule: "If object-x is part-of object-y then a component-of object-y is object-x."

Programs written in PROLOG have behavior similar to rule-based systems written in LISP. PROLOG, however, did not immediately become a language of choice for AI programmers. In the early 1980s it was given impetus with the announcement by the Japanese that they would use a logic programming language for the Fifth Generation Computing Systems (FGCS) Project. A variety of logic-based programming languages have since arisen, and the term prolog has become generic.

Designing an Expert System

In this section we will go into more detail on how expert systems are designed and written. First the basic architecture of an expert system will be reviewed, then we will discuss the issues in designing the expert systems.

Expert System Architecture

         The figure shows the most important modules that make up a rule-based expert system. The user interacts with the system through a user interface, which may use menus, natural language or any other style of interaction. Then an inference engine is used to reason with both the expert knowledge (extracted from our friendly expert) and data specific to the particular problem being solved. The expert knowledge will typically be in the form of a set of IF-THEN rules. The case specific data includes both data provided by the user and partial conclusions (along with certainty measures) based on this data. In a simple forward chaining rule-based system the case specific data will be the elements in working memory

       

            Almost all expert systems also have an explanation subsystem, which allows the program to explain its reasoning to the user. Some systems also have a knowledge base editor, which help the expert or knowledge engineer to easily update and check the knowledge base.

         

One important feature of expert systems is the way they (usually) separate domain specific knowledge from more general-purpose reasoning and representation techniques. The general purpose bit (in the dotted box in the figure) is referred to as an expert system shell. As we see in the figure, the shell will provide the inference engine (and knowledge representation scheme), a user interface, an explanation system and sometimes a knowledge base editor. Given a new kind of problem to solve (say, car design), we can usually find a shell that provides the right sort of support for that problem, so all we need to do is provide the expert knowledge. There are numerous commercial expert system shells, each one appropriate for a slightly different range of problems. (Expert systems work in industry includes both writing expert system shells and writing expert systems using shells.) Using shells to write expert systems generally greatly reduces the cost and time of development (compared with writing the expert system from scratch).

Issues in the design of expert systems

The typical architecture of an expert system is as shown in the fig.

This Applies particularly to the early systems, and the many commercial systems that have copied them

The inference engine and knowledge base are separated because:

·        the reasoning mechanism needs to be as stable as possible;

·        the knowledge base must be able to grow and change, as knowledge is added;

·        this arrangement enables the system to be built from, or converted into, a shell.

An expert system shell is simply an expert system stripped of its knowledge base, so that a different knowledge base, probably concerned with a different knowledge domain, can replace it. Example: EMYCIN, made from MYCIN.

Choosing a Problem

Writing an expert system generally involves a great deal of time and money. To avoid costly and emabarrasing failures, people have developed a set of guidelines to determine whether a problem is suitable for an expert system solution:

1.      The need for a solution must justify the costs involved in development. There must be a realistic assessment of the costs and benefits involved.

2.      Human expertise is not available in all situations where it is needed. If the ``expert'' knowledge is widely available it is unlikely that it will be worth developing an expert system. However, in areas like oil exploration and medicine there may be rare specialised knowledge which could be cheaply provided by an expert system, as and when required, without having to fly in your friendly (but very highly paid) expert.

3.      The problem may be solved using symbolic reasoning techniques. It shouldn't require manual dexterity or physical skill.

4.      The problem is well structured and does not require (much) common sense knowledge. Common sense knowledge is notoriously hard to capture and represent. It turns out that highly technical fields are easier to deal with, and tend to involve relatively small amounts of well formalised knowledge.

5.      The problem cannot be easily solved using more traditional computing methods. If there's a good algorithmic solution to a problem, you don't want to use an expert system.

6.      Cooperative and articulate experts exist. For an expert system project to be successful it is essential that the experts are willing to help, and don't feel that their job is threatened! You also need any management and potential users to be involved and have positive attitudes to the whole thing.

7.      The problem is of proper size and scope. Typically you need problems that require highly specialized expertise, but would only take a human expert a short time to solve (say an hour, max).

It should be clear that only a small range of problems are appropriate for expert system technology. However, given a suitable problem, expert systems can bring enormous benefits. Systems have been developed, for example, to help analyse samples collected in oil exploration, and to help configure computer systems. Both these systems are (or were) in active use, saving large amounts of money.

Problems with using several experts to build a knowledge base in a particular domain.

·        Different experts may use different discriminations to arrive at the same conclusion.

·        Therefore, they are likely to produce different rules (or objects), and these are liable to conflict.

One way round this problem: get one expert to provide the knowledge in the prototype, and get others to refine it.

A Simple Example

This is much better explained through a simple example. (You should maybe look back at the notes on rule-based system if it is unclear.) Suppose that we have the following rules:

1.      IF engine_getting_petrol
AND engine_turns_over
THEN problem_with_spark_plugs

2.      IF NOT engine_turns_over
AND NOT lights_come_on
THEN problem_with_battery

3.      IF NOT engine_turns_over
AND lights_come_on
THEN problem_with_starter

4.      IF petrol_in_fuel_tank
THEN engine_getting_petrol

Our problem is to work out what's wrong with our car given some observable symptoms. There are three possible problems with the car: problem_with_spark_plugs, problem_with_battery, problem_with_starter. We'll assume that we have been provided with no initial facts about the observable symptoms.

In the simplest goal-directed system we would try to prove each hypothesised problem (with the car) in turn. First the system would try to prove ``problem_with_spark_plugs''. Rule 1 is potentially useful, so the system would set the new goals of proving ``engine_getting_petrol'' and ``engine_turns_over''. Trying to prove the first of these, rule 4 can be used, with new goal of proving ``petrol_in_fuel_tank'' There are no rules which conclude this (and the system doesn't already know the answer), so the system will ask the user:

Is it true that there's petrol in the fuel tank?

Let's say that the answer is yes. This answer would be recorded, so that the user doesn't get asked the same question again. Anyway, the systom now has proved that the engine is getting petrol, so now wants to find out if the engine turns over. As the system doesn't yet know whether this is the case, and as there are no rules which conclude this, the user will be asked:

Is it true that the engine turns over?

Lets say this time the answer is no. There are no other rules which can be used to prove ``problem_with_spark_plugs'' so the system will conclude that this is not the solution to the problem, and will consider the next hypothesis: problem_with_battery. It is true that the engine does not turn over (the user has just said that), so all it has to prove is that the lights don't come one. It will ask the user

Is it true that the lights come on?

Suppose the answer is no. It has now proved that the problem is with the battery. Some systems might stop there, but usually there might be more than one solution, (e.g., more than one fault with the car), or it will be uncertain which of various solutions is the right one. So usually all hypotheses are considered. It will try to prove ``problem_with_starter'', but given the existing data (the lights come on) the proof will fail, so the system will conclude that the problem is with the battery. A complete interaction with our very simple system might be:

System: Is it true that there's petrol in the fuel tank?
User: Yes.
System: Is it true that the engine turns over?
User: No.
System Is it true that the lights come on?
User: No.
System: I conclude that there is a problem with battery.

Note that in general, solving problems using backward chaining involves searching through all the possible ways of proving the hypothesis, systematically checking each of them. A common way of doing this search is the same as in Prolog - depth first search with backtracking.

 THE APPLICATIONS OF EXPERT SYSTEMS

The spectrum of applications of expert systems technology to industrial and commercial problems is so wide as to defy easy characterization. The applications find their way into most areas of knowledge work. They are as varied as helping salespersons sell modular factory-built homes to helping NASA plan the maintenance of a space shuttle in preparation for its next flight.

Applications tend to cluster into seven major classes.

Diagnosis and Troubleshooting of Devices and Systems of All Kinds

This class comprises systems that deduce faults and suggest corrective actions for a malfunctioning device or process. Medical diagnosis was one of the first knowledge areas to which ES technology was applied (for example, see Shortliffe 1976), but diagnosis of engineered systems quickly surpassed medical diagnosis. There are probably more diagnostic applications of ES than any other type. The diagnostic problem can be stated in the abstract as: given the evidence presenting itself, what is the underlying problem/reason/cause?

Planning and Scheduling

Systems that fall into this class analyze a set of one or more potentially complex and interacting goals in order to determine a set of actions to achieve those goals, and/or provide a detailed temporal ordering of those actions, taking into account personnel, materiel, and other constraints. This class has great commercial potential, which has been recognized. Examples involve airline scheduling of flights, personnel, and gates; manufacturing job-shop scheduling; and manufacturing process planning.

Configuration of Manufactured Objects from Subassemblies

Configuration, whereby a solution to a problem is synthesized from a given set of elements related by a set of constraints, is historically one of the most important of expert system applications. Configuration applications were pioneered by computer companies as a means of facilitating the manufacture of semi-custom minicomputers (McDermott 1981). The technique has found its way into use in many different industries, for example, modular home building, manufacturing, and other problems involving complex engineering design and manufacturing.

Financial Decision Making

The financial services industry has been a vigorous user of expert system techniques. Advisory programs have been created to assist bankers in determining whether to make loans to businesses and individuals. Insurance companies have used expert systems to assess the risk presented by the customer and to determine a price for the insurance. A typical application in the financial markets is in foreign exchange trading.

Knowledge Publishing

This is a relatively new, but also potentially explosive area. The primary function of the expert system is to deliver knowledge that is relevant to the user's problem, in the context of the user's problem. The two most widely distributed expert systems in the world are in this category. The first is an advisor which counsels a user on appropriate grammatical usage in a text. The second is a tax advisor that accompanies a tax preparation program and advises the user on tax strategy, tactics, and individual tax policy.

Process Monitoring and Control

Systems falling in this class analyze real-time data from physical devices with the goal of noticing anomalies, predicting trends, and controlling for both optimality and failure correction. Examples of real-time systems that actively monitor processes can be found in the steel making and oil refining industries.

Design and Manufacturing

These systems assist in the design of physical devices and processes, ranging from high-level conceptual design of abstract entities all the way to factory floor configuration of manufacturing processes.

Conclusion

In the 1980s, expert systems were seen as a very important new technology, and the governments of industrialised nations responded by investing heavily in expert systems research. While the confident predictions made at this time have not been entirely fulfilled, there has nevertheless been a flowering in the field, with the number of successful commercial applications increasingly rapidly, year by year. Expert systems are easily the most commercially important area of applied artificial intelligence technology.

Expert system technology is widespread and deeply imbedded

Early in its history, commercial expert systems tools were written primarily in LISP and PROLOG, but more recently the trend has been to conventional languages such as C.

            Now expert systems are present in almost all the areas of industry and government trying to solve part, or perhaps all, of the practical, significant problems that previously required sparce human expertise.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Reference:

                                                                                      Introduction to AI and Expert Systems

     by Carol E. Brown and Daniel E. O'Leary.

                                                                                      And

                                                                                      Expert systems

                                                                                         by  George F. Luger's