Expert
Systems | IGCSE ICT
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What is an Expert System?
An expert system is computer software that attempts to act like a
human expert on a particular subject area.
Expert systems are often used to advise nonexperts in situations
where a human expert in unavailable (for example it may be too
expensive to employ a human expert, or it might be a difficult to reach
location).
How Do Expert Systems Work?
An expert system is made up of three parts:
A user interface This is the system that allows a nonexpert
user to query (question) the expert system, and to receive
advice. The userinterface is designed to be a simple to use as
possible.
A knowledge base This is a collection of facts and rules. The
knowledge base is created from information provided by
human experts
An inference engine This acts rather like a search engine,
examining the knowledge base for information that matches the
user's query
The nonexpert user queries the expert system. This is done by
asking a question, or by answering questions asked by the expert
system.
The inference engine uses the query to search the knowledge base
and then provides an answer or some advice to the user.
Where Are Expert Systems Used?
Medical diagnosis (the knowledge base would contain medical
information, the symptoms of the patient would be used as the query,
and the advice would be a diagnose of the patient’s illness)
Playing strategy games like chess against a computer (the
knowledge base would contain strategies and moves, the player's
moves would be used as the query, and the output would be the
computer's 'expert' moves)
Providing financial advice whether to invest in a business, etc. (the
knowledge base would contain data about the performance of
financial markets and businesses in the past)
You can try a demonstration of a
Helping to identify items such as plants / animals / rocks / etc. (the car fault diagnosis system online
knowledge base would contain characteristics of every item, the here .
details of an unknown item would be used as the query, and the
advice would be a likely identification)
Helping to discover locations to drill for water / oil (the knowledge
base would contain characteristics of likely rock formations where oil /
water could be found, the details of a particular location would be
used as the query, and the advice would be the likelihood of finding oil
/ water there)
Helping to diagnose car engine problems (like medical diagnosis, but
for cars!)
The Scottish health service has a
selfdiagnosis expert system you
Can Expert Systems Make Mistakes? can try online here .
Human experts make mistakes all the time (people forget things, etc.)
so you might imagine that a computerbased expert system would be
much better to have around.
However expert systems can some problems:
Can't easily adapt to new circumstances (e.g. if they are
presented with totally unexpected data, they are unable to
process it)
Can be difficult to use (if the nonexpert user makes mistakes
when using the system, the resulting advice could be very
wrong)
They have no 'common sense' (a human user tends to notice
obvious errors, whereas a computer wouldn't)
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