Artificial Intelligence

and Expert Systems

SCHOOL OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 1
 Syllabus
Expert System
Architecture of Expert system, Role of Expert system,
Capabilities of Expert Systems, Inference engine, Knowledge acquisition,
Expert Systems Limitations, Expert systems shells,
Applications of Expert systems,
Case study of Expert systems- MYCIN

ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
 Expert System
• It is a computer program that is designed to solve complex problems and to
provide decision-making ability like a human expert.
• It performs this by extracting knowledge from its knowledge base using the
reasoning and inference rules according to the user queries.
• The performance of an expert system is based on the expert's knowledge stored
in its knowledge base.
• The more knowledge stored in the KB, the more that system improves its
performance.
• One of the common examples of an ES is a suggestion of spelling errors while
typing in the Google search box.

ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Architecture
Components of Expert System
An expert system mainly consists of three components:
▪ User Interface
▪ Inference Engine
▪ Knowledge Base
 Components of Expert System
1. User Interface –
▪ The expert system interacts with the user via a user interface
▪ It takes queries as an input in a readable format, and passes it to the inference
engine. After getting the response from the inference engine, it displays the
output to the user
▪ An interface that allows a non-expert to communicate with the expert system and
find a solution

ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
 Components of Expert System
2. Inference Engine (Rules of Engine)
▪ Also known as the brain of the expert system
▪ Main processing unit of the system
▪ Applies inference rules to the knowledge base (KB) to derive a conclusion or
deduce new information
▪ With the help of an inference engine, the system extracts the knowledge from the
knowledge base.

ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
 Components of Expert System
There are two types of inference engine
Deterministic Inference engine:
The conclusions drawn from this type of inference engine are assumed to be true.
It is based on facts and rules.
Probabilistic Inference engine :
This type of inference engine contains uncertainty in conclusions and based on the

probability.

ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
 Components of Expert System
Inference engine uses the below modes to derive the solutions
▪ Forward Chaining: It starts from the known facts and rules and applies the
inference rules to add their conclusion to the known facts.
▪ Backward Chaining: It is a backward reasoning method that starts from the goal
and works backward to prove the known facts.

ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Components of Expert System

ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
 Components of Expert System
3. Knowledge Base
▪ Database that contains information and rules of a particular domain or subject.
▪ Storage that stores knowledge acquired from the different experts of the particular
domain
▪ The more the knowledge base, the more precise will be the Expert System
▪ Knowledge base as collections of objects and their attributes

ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
 Components of Expert System
Components of Knowledge Base:
▪ Factual Knowledge: The knowledge which is based on facts and accepted by
knowledge engineers comes under factual knowledge.
▪ Heuristic Knowledge: This knowledge is based on practice, the ability to guess,
evaluation, and experiences

ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
 Role of Expert system in AI
▪ An expert system is a computer system that emulates the decision-making ability of a
human expert
▪ Expert systems are designed to solve complex problems by reasoning

What is the role of AI in information system?

▪ AI aims at building intelligent systems that are capable of learning, reasoning, adapting,
and performing tasks similar to humans.
▪ And the information technology systems are concerned with capturing, storing,
analyzing, and evaluating data to communicate the best output as a piece of information.
 Role of Expert system in AI
An Artificial intelligence system has the following components for displaying intelligent behavior:
▪ Perception
▪ Learning
▪ Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
▪ Planning
▪ Execution
Role of Expert system in AI

Execution
 Role of Expert system in AI
❑ Perception - Retrieves information from its Environment. It
can be visual, audio or another form of sensory input
❑ Learning – responsible for learning from data captured by
Perception compartment
❑ knowledge representation and Reasoning - involved in
showing the intelligence in machine-like humans
❑ The planning and execution depend on analysis of
Knowledge representation and reasoning
 Role of Expert system in AI
Approaches to knowledge representation

1. Simple relational knowledge –

▪ It is the simplest way of storing facts which uses the

relational method, and each fact about a set of the object is

set out systematically in columns.
▪ This approach is famous in database systems where the
relationship between different entities is represented
▪ This approach has little opportunity for inference
 Role of Expert system in AI
2. Inheritable knowledge:
▪ All data must be stored into a hierarchy of classes
▪ Elements inherit values from other members of a class.
▪ This approach contains inheritable knowledge which
shows a relation between instance and class, and it is
called instance relation.
▪ Every individual frame can represent the collection of
attributes and its value.
▪ In this approach, objects and values are represented in
Boxed nodes.
▪ We use Arrows which point from objects to their
values.
 Role of Expert system in AI
3. Inferential knowledge
▪ Inferential knowledge approach represents knowledge in the form of formal logics.

▪ This approach can be used to derive more facts.

▪ It guarantees correctness.
▪ Example: Let's suppose there are two statements:
1. Marcus is a man
2. All men are mortal
Then it can represent as;
man(marcus)
V x:man(x) mortal (x)
Role of Expert system in AI
4. Procedural knowledge:
▪ Procedural knowledge approach uses small programs and codes which describes

how to do specific things, and how to proceed.

▪ In this approach, one important rule is used which is If-Then rule.
▪ In this knowledge, we can use various coding languages such as LISP language
and Prolog language.
▪ We can easily represent heuristic or domain-specific knowledge using this
approach.
▪ But it is not necessary that we can represent all cases in this approach.
Role of Expert system in AI
Role of Expert system in AI
Characteristics of Expert System
▪ High level Performance
✔ Capable of responding at a level of competency
✔ The quality of the advice given by the system should be in a high-level integrity
▪ Domain Specificity
✔ Expert systems are typically very domain specific
✔ The developer of such a system must limit his or her scope of the system to just what is
needed to solve the target problem
▪ Reliability - The expert system must be as reliable as a human expert
▪ Understandable
✔ The system should be understandable i.e. be able to explain the steps of reasoning
while executing.
✔ Expert system should have an explanation capability
Characteristics of Expert System
▪ Adequate Response time - It is able to perform within a small amount of time
comparable to or better than the time taken by a human expert to reach at a decision point
▪ Use symbolic representations - ES use symbolic representations for knowledge (rules,
networks or frames) and perform their inference through symbolic computations
▪ Linked with Metaknowledge – Expert systems often reason with metaknowledge i.e.
they reason with knowledge about themselves and their own knowledge limits and
capabilities.
▪ Expertise knowledge – ES must be skillful in applying its knowledge to produce
solutions both efficiently and effectively by using the intelligence human expert
▪ Justified Reasoning - This allows the users to ask the expert system to justify the solution
or advice provided by it.
 Capabilities of Expert Systems
The expert systems are capable of
▪ Advising - It is capable of advising the human being for the query of any domain from the
particular ES.
▪ Provide decision making capabilities - It provides the capability of decision making in
any domain, such as for making any financial decision, decisions in medical science, etc.
▪ Demonstrate a device - It is capable of demonstrating any new products such as its
features, specifications, how to use that product, etc
▪ Problem Solving - It has problem-solving capabilities
 Capabilities of Expert Systems
▪ Interpreting the input - It is capable of interpreting the input given by the user.
▪ Predicting results - It can be used for the prediction of a result.
▪ Diagnosing - An ES designed for the medical field is capable of diagnosing a disease
without using multiple components as it already contains various inbuilt medical
tools.
▪ The error rate of successful systems is low, sometimes much lower than the human
error rate for the same task.
▪ ESs make consistent recommendations
 Capabilities of Expert Systems
• ESs are a convenient vehicle for bringing to the point of application difficult-to-use
sources of knowledge.
• ESs can capture the scarce expertise of a uniquely qualified expert.
• ESs can become a vehicle for building up organizational knowledge, as opposed to
the knowledge of individuals in the organization.
• When use as training vehicles, ESs result in a faster learning curve for novices.
• The company can operate an ES in environments hazardous for humans.
 Knowledge Acquisition

▪ Knowledge Acquisition is the bottle neck of building Intelligent System.

▪ It is the process of acquiring the knowledge from human or other sources (E.g
Books, Manuals) to solve the problem.
 Knowledge Sources

▪ Textbooks
▪ Reports
▪ Database (Data mining)
▪ Case Studies
▪ Empirical Data
▪ Person Expertise
 Selection of Expert
Ask the organization to provide you with the names of candidate domain
experts, that is, those individuals who are believed to have significant expertise
within the domain in question.
▪ Select a domain expert whose performance is generally acknowledged to
be above and beyond that of most others performing the same task.
▪ Select an expert with a successful track record over a period of time.
 Selection of Expert
■ Select an expert who is both willing and able to communicate
personal knowledge, and who is relatively articulate in doing
so.
■ Select an expert who is both willing and able to devote the
time necessary to support the development effort.
■ If no expert can be identified, or made available, consider the
development of the rule base through alternative means (as
will be discussed in the sections to follow)
 Interviewing the Expert
1. There are 4 reasons why Knowledge can’t be satisfied to
describe the domain
■ For some problems there may not be an expert,
■ Some experts are unable to describe what they do,
■ Some experts may not reveal their tricks of the trade, and
■ Some experts may actually have poor expertise
 Interviewing the Expert
2. Initial meeting has some purposes
■ Relax individual (expert)
■ Explain Problem
■ Schedule follow-on meeting
■ Evaluate the true extent of expertise of our systems
 Interviewing the Expert
3. Documentation - Documentation of the results of the meeting
as soon as possible, it should contains such facts:
■ Date, time and location of the meeting

■ Name of Expert (i.e., if more than one expert is being used)

■ List and description of the rules identified during the

meeting
■ Listing of any new objects, attributes and/or values
encountered - and their properties
 Interviewing the Expert
■ Identification of any new outside sources and references
■ Listing of any new terminology encountered, and associated
definitions
■ Listing and discussion of any gaps or discrepancies
encountered
■ Reminders (e.g., of points that need to be clarified)
 Techniques used for extracting Knowledge from a domain expert

1. On-site observation
K.E watches the domain expert (D.E.) solving real problems on the job

Note: difficulties are that the K.E. extracts the rules of solving the problems
without expansion from D.E.
 Techniques used for extracting Knowledge from a domain expert

2. Problem discussion
K.E. explores the kinds of data, Knowledge. and procedures needed to solve the
problem
through the discussion
 Techniques used for extracting Knowledge from a domain expert

3. Problem description
Have the expert describes a prototypical problem for each category of answer in
the domain

Note: difficulties are that the D.E. describes a prototype (not real problem).
 Techniques used for extracting Knowledge from a domain expert

4. Problem analysis
K.E. presents the expert with a series of realistic problems then the D.E solves the
problems with reasoning steps (analyze the results).
 Techniques used for extracting Knowledge from a domain expert

5. System refinement
Have the D.E. gives the K.E. a series of problems to solve using the rules acquired
from the interviews.
 Techniques used for extracting Knowledge from a domain expert

6. System examination
Have the D.E. examine and critique the prototype system’s rules and control
structure.
 Advantages of Expert System
▪ These systems are highly reproducible.
▪ They can be used for risky places where the human presence is not
safe.
▪ Error possibilities are less if the KB contains correct knowledge.
▪ The performance of these systems remains steady as it is not affected
by emotions, tension, or fatigue.
▪ They provide a very high speed to respond to a particular query
 Limitations of Expert System
▪ The response of the expert system may get wrong if the knowledge
base contains the wrong information.
▪ Like a human being, it cannot produce a creative output for different
scenarios.
▪ Its maintenance and development costs are very high.
▪ Knowledge acquisition for designing is much difficult.
▪ For each domain, we require a specific ES, which is one of the big
limitations.
▪ It cannot learn from itself and hence requires manual updates.
 Applications of Expert System
▪ In designing and manufacturing domain - Designing and
manufacturing physical devices such as camera lenses and automobiles.
▪ In the knowledge domain - Publishing the relevant knowledge to the
users. The two popular ES used for this domain is an advisor and a tax
advisor.
▪ In the finance domain - Detect any type of possible fraud, suspicious
activity, and advise bankers that if they should provide loans for business
or not.
 Applications of Expert System
▪ In the diagnosis and troubleshooting of devices - In medical diagnosis,
the ES system is used, and it was the first area where these systems were
used.
▪ Planning and Scheduling - Planning and scheduling some particular
tasks for achieving the goal of that task.