"Artificial Intelligence"

Expert Systems

Dr. Rabindra Kumar Singh

Associate Professor (Sr.)
School of Computer Science and Engineering
VIT - Chennai

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Introduction

What is Expert System?

It is an interactive and reliable computer-based decision-making system
which uses both facts and heuristics to solve complex decision-making
problems.
It is considered at the highest level of human intelligence and expertise.
It is to solve the most complex issues in a specific domain.

Expert Systems in AI
The Expert System in AI can resolve many issues which generally would
require a human expert. It is based on knowledge acquired from an expert.
AI and Expert Systems are capable of expressing and reasoning about
some domain of knowledge.
Expert systems were the predecessor of the current day artificial
intelligence, deep learning and machine learning systems.

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Examples of an Expert System

Characteristics of ES
The Highest Level of Expertise: The ES in AI offers the highest level of
expertise. It provides efficiency, accuracy and imaginative problem-solving.
Right on Time Reaction: An ES in AI interacts in a very reasonable period of
time with the user. The total time must be less than the time taken by an expert
to get the most accurate solution for the same problem.
Good Reliability: ES in AI needs to be reliable, and it must not make any a
mistake.
Flexible: It is vital that it remains flexible as it the is possessed by an ES.
Effective Mechanism: ES in AI must have an efficient mechanism to administer
the compilation of the existing knowledge in it.
Capable of handling challenging decision & problems: An ES is capable of
handling challenging decision problems and delivering solutions.
Examples of ES
MYCIN: It was based on backward chaining and could identify various bacteria
that could cause acute infections. It could also recommend drugs based on the
patient’s weight.
DENDRAL: ES used for chemical analysis to predict molecular structure.
PXDES: ES used to predict the degree and type of lung cancer
CaDet: ES used to can identify cancer at early stages

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Components of ES I

User Interface :
It is the most crucial part of the ES Software.
It takes the user’s query in a readable form and passes it to the inference
engine.
It displays the results to the user.

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Components of ES II

Inference Engine :
It is the brain of the ES.
It contains rules to solve a specific problem.
It refers the knowledge from the Knowledge Base.
It selects facts and rules to apply when trying to answer the user’s query.
It provides reasoning about the information in the knowledge base.
It also helps in deducting the problem to find the solution. And also helpful
for formulating conclusions.

Knowledge Base :
It is a repository of facts.
It stores all the knowledge about the problem domain.
It is like a large container of knowledge which is obtained from different
experts of a specific field.
It mainly depends on the highly accurate and precise knowledge.

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Knowledge Acquisition

The term knowledge acquisition means how to get required domain

knowledge by the ES.
The entire process starts by extracting knowledge from a human expert,
converting the acquired knowledge into rules and injecting the developed
rules into the knowledge base.

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Inference Engine I

Use of efficient procedures and rules by the Inference Engine is essential in

deducting a correct, flawless solution.

In case of Knowledge-based ES, the Inference Engine acquires and

manipulates the knowledge from the knowledge base to arrive at a particular
solution.

In case of Rule based ES, it :

Applies rules repeatedly to the facts, which are obtained from earlier rule
application.
Adds new knowledge into the knowledge base if required.
Resolves rules conflict when multiple rules are applicable to a particular case.

To recommend a solution, the Inference Engine uses the following strategies

Forward Chaining
Backward Chaining

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Inference Engine II

Forward Chaining :
It is a strategy of an ES to answer the question, “What can happen
next?”
Here, the Inference Engine(IE) follows the chain of conditions and
derivations and finally deduces the outcome. It considers all the facts and
rules, and sorts them before concluding to a solution.
This strategy is followed for working on conclusion, result, or effect. For
example, prediction of share market status as an effect of changes in
interest rates.

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Inference Engine III

Backward Chaining :
With this strategy, an expert system finds out the answer to the question,
“Why this happened?”
On the basis of what has already happened, the Inference Engine tries to
find out which conditions could have happened in the past for this result.
This strategy is followed for finding out cause or reason. For example,
diagnosis of blood cancer in humans.

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Participant in ES Development and its Process

Participant Role
He is a person or group whose expertise and
Domain Expert
knowledge is taken to develop an expert system.
Knowledge engineer is a technical person
Knowledge Engineer
who integrates knowledge into computer systems.
It is a person or group of people
End User who are using the expert system to get
advice which will not be provided by the expert.
The process of Building An Expert Systems
Determining the characteristics of the problem
Knowledge engineer and domain expert work in coherence to define the
problem
The knowledge engineer translates the knowledge into a
computer-understandable language. He designs an inference engine, a
reasoning structure, which can use knowledge when needed.
Knowledge Expert also determines how to integrate the use of uncertain
knowledge in the reasoning process and what type of explanation would be
useful.

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Development of Expert Systems I

The process of ES development is iterative. Steps in developing the ES include :

Identify Problem Domain :

The problem must be suitable for an expert system to solve it.
Find the experts in task domain for the ES project.
Establish cost-effectiveness of the system.

Design the System :

Identify the ES Technology
Know and establish the degree of integration with the other systems and
databases.
Realize how the concepts can represent the domain knowledge best.

Develop the Prototype :

From Knowledge Base: The knowledge engineer works to
Acquire domain knowledge from the expert.
Represent it in the form of If-THEN-ELSE rules.

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Development of Expert Systems II

Test and Refine the Prototype :

The knowledge engineer uses sample cases to test the prototype for any
deficiencies in performance.
End users test the prototypes of the ES.

Develop and Complete the ES :

Test and ensure the interaction of the ES with all elements of its
environment, including end users, databases, and other information
systems.
Document the ES project well.
Train the user to use ES.

Maintain the System :

Keep the knowledge base up-to-date by regular review and update.
Cater for new interfaces with other information systems, as those systems
evolve.

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Differences....

Table: Conventional System vs. Expert System

Conventional System Expert System

Knowledge and processing are Knowledge database and the processing
combined in one unit. mechanism are two separate components.
The programme does not make
The Expert System may make a mistake.
errors (Unless error in programming).
The expert system is optimized on an
The system is operational only
ongoing basis and can be launched
when fully developed.
with a small number of rules.
Step by step execution according Execution is done logically
to fixed algorithms is required. & heuristically.
It can be functional with sufficient
It needs full information.
or insufficient information.

Table: Human expert vs. Expert System

Human Expert Artificial Expertise

Perishable Permanent
Difficult to Transfer Transferable
Difficult to Document Easy to Document
Unpredictable Consistent
Expensive Cost effective System

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Advantages of Expert System

It improves the decision quality

Cuts the expense of consulting experts for problem-solving
It provides fast and efficient solutions to problems in a narrow area of
specialization.
It can gather scarce expertise and used it efficiently.
Offers consistent answer for the repetitive problem
Maintains a significant level of information
Helps you to get fast and accurate answers
A proper explanation of decision making
Ability to solve complex and challenging issues
AI-ES can steadily work without getting emotional, tensed or fatigued.

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Applications of Expert System

Limitations of Expert System

Unable to make a creative response in an extraordinary situation
Errors in the knowledge base can lead to wrong decision
The maintenance cost of an expert system is too expensive
Each problem is different therefore the solution from a human expert can
also be different and more creative

Applications of Expert System

Information management
The configuration of manufactured
Hospitals and medical facilities objects
Help desks management Financial decision making Knowledge
Employee performance evaluation publishing
Loan analysis Process monitoring and control
Virus detection Supervise the operation of the plant
Useful for repair and maintenance and controller
projects Stock market trading
Warehouse optimization Airline scheduling & cargo schedules
Planning and scheduling

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