On Thu, 19 Jan 2023, Chris via cctalk wrote:
Long live PROLOG dude! Something I've never delved into but am
fascinated by.
Expert systems are just tricked out database systems. I have to imagine
they are used. They just never lived up to the hype. AI in any form, I
suppose, will make real what many had as a vision for computers in the
80s. To amplify or enhance human ability to accomplish a task. But
humans are lazy and will eventually turn too much of their own autonomy
over to computers.
When I went back to graduate school for my degrees in Information Studies,
I took a course in "Expert Systems". Totally underwhelmed by it.
The majority of the examples in the textbook were just simple decision
trees! Trivial to flowchart. And if you can follow a
troubleshooting flowchart, you are already doing what the "expert system"
does.
One example was troubleshooting a motorcycle that would not start. OK.
I've been there. The example went through reasonable tests (although not
necessarily the sequence that I would use), Then at the end, when none of
the tests produced an answer, it DECLARED that the problem was clogged
vent of fuel tank! A reasonable item to test; but they didn't! The
example concluded it based solely on not having found the problem on the
tests that they did! A troubleshooting flowchart that "falls through"
to a conclusion is wrong.
"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book
of Sherlock Holmes. is a FLAWED way to troubleshoot. Incompetent
people often cite that when they don't know what they are doing.
People who troubleshoot by "process of elimination", will 1) always fail
to come up with ALL possibilities to test; 2) in testing possibilities
will fail to ACTUALLY eliminate them, and often merely determine that
they are improbable, mistaking that for impossible.
"Expert systems" are an attempted implementation of what the
programmer gleaned from interviewing the human "expert".
ChatGPT at least expands the original sources of information a bit.
If somebody is incapable of following a troubleshooting flowchart, then
an "expert system" can talk them through that.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
