Lecture#1

Knowledge-Based Decision Support

System
 Knowledge-Based Decision
Support: Artificial Intelligence
and Expert Systems

 Managerial Decision Makers are

Knowledge Workers
 Use Knowledge in Decision Making
 Accessibility to Knowledge Issue
 Knowledge-Based Decision Support:
Applied Artificial Intelligence

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 AI Concepts and Definitions

 Many Definitions
 AI Involves Studying Human Thought
Processes
 Representing Thought Processes on
Machines

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 Artificial Intelligence
 Behavior by a machine that, if performed
by a human being, would be considered
intelligent
 “…study of how to make computers do
things at which, at the moment, people
are better” (Rich and Knight [1991])
 Theory of how the human mind works
(Mark Fox)

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 AI Objectives

 Make machines smarter (primary goal)

 Understand what intelligence is (Nobel
Laureate purpose)
 Make machines more useful
(entrepreneurial purpose)

(Winston and Prendergast [1984])

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Signs of Intelligence

 Learn or understand from experience

 Make sense out of ambiguous or
contradictory messages
 Respond quickly and successfully to new
situations
 Use reasoning to solve problems

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 More Signs of Intelligence
 Deal with perplexing situations
 Understand and infer in ordinary,
rational ways
 Apply knowledge to manipulate the
environment
 Think and reason
 Recognize the relative importance of
different elements in a situation
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Turing Test for Intelligence

A computer can be considered to be smart

only when a human interviewer,
“conversing” with both an unseen human
being and an unseen computer, can not
determine which is which

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 AI Represents Knowledge as
Sets of Symbols
A symbol is a string of characters that
stands for some real-world concept

Examples
 Product
 Defendant
 0.8
 Chocolate 9
 Symbol Structures
(Relationships)
 (DEFECTIVE product)
 (LEASED-BY product defendant)
 (EQUAL (LIABILITY defendant) 0.8)
 tastes_good (chocolate).

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 AI Programs Manipulate Symbols to
Solve Problems

 Symbols and Symbol Structures Form

Knowledge Representation

 Artificial Intelligence Dealings Primarily

with Symbolic, Nonalgorithmic Problem-
Solving Methods

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 AI Advantages Over Natural
Intelligence
 More permanent
 Ease of duplication and dissemination
 Less expensive
 Consistent and thorough
 Can be documented
 Can execute certain tasks much faster than a
human can
 Can perform certain tasks better than many or
even most people
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Natural Intelligence
Advantages over AI
 Natural intelligence is creative
 People use sensory experience directly
 Can use a wide context of experience in
different situations

AI - Very Narrow Focus

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Expert Systems

 Attempt to Imitate Expert Reasoning

Processes and Knowledge in Solving
Specific Problems
 Most Popular Applied AI Technology
– Enhance Productivity
– Augment Work Forces
 Narrow Problem-Solving Areas or Tasks
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Expert Systems
 Provide Direct Application of Expertise

 Expert Systems Do Not Replace Experts,

But They
– Make their Knowledge and Experience More
Widely Available
– Permit Nonexperts to Work Better

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Expert Systems

 Expertise
 Transferring Experts
 Inferencing
 Rules
 Explanation Capability

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Expertise
 The extensive, task-specific knowledge acquired
from training, reading and experience
– Theories about the problem area
– Hard-and-fast rules and procedures
– Rules (heuristics)
– Global strategies
– Meta-knowledge (knowledge about knowledge)
– Facts
 Enables experts to be better and faster than
nonexperts

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Human Expert Behaviors

 Recognize and formulate the problem

 Solve problems quickly and properly
 Explain the solution
 Learn from experience
 Restructure knowledge
 Break rules
 Determine relevance
 Degrade gracefully
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Transferring Expertise
 Objective of an expert system
– To transfer expertise from an expert to a computer
system and
– Then on to other humans (nonexperts)
 Activities
– Knowledge acquisition
– Knowledge representation
– Knowledge inferencing
– Knowledge transfer to the user
 Knowledge is stored in a knowledge base
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Two Knowledge Types

 Facts
 Procedures (usually rules)

Regarding the Problem Domain

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Inferencing

 Reasoning (Thinking)
 The computer is programmed so that it
can make inferences
 Performed by the Inference Engine

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Rules

 IF-THEN-ELSE

 Explanation Capability
– By the justifier, or explanation
subsystem
 ES versus Conventional Systems

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Structure of
Expert Systems
 Development Environment
 Consultation (Runtime) Environment

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
Three Major ES Components

User Interface

Inference
Engine

Knowledge
Base

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 All ES Components
 Knowledge Acquisition Subsystem
 Knowledge Base
 Inference Engine
 User Interface
 Blackboard (Workplace)
 Explanation Subsystem (Justifier)
 Knowledge Refining System
 User

 Most ES do not have a Knowledge Refinement

Component
(See Figure 10.3)
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Knowledge Base
 The knowledge base contains the knowledge necessary
for understanding, formulating, and solving problems

 Two Basic Knowledge Base Elements

– Facts
– Special heuristics, or rules that direct the use of
knowledge

– Knowledge is the primary raw material of ES

– Incorporated knowledge representation
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Inference Engine

 The brain of the ES

 The control structure (rule interpreter)
 Provides methodology for reasoning

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 User Interface

 Language processor for friendly,

problem-oriented communication
 NLP, or menus and graphics

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
The Human Element in Expert
Systems
 Expert
 Knowledge Engineer
 User
 Others

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 How Expert Systems Work

Major Activities of
ES Construction and Use

 Development
 Consultation
 Improvement

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 ES Shell

 Includes All Generic ES Components

 But No Knowledge
– EMYCIN from MYCIN
– (E=Empty)

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Expert Systems Shells
Software Development Packages
 Exsys
 InstantTea
 K-Vision
 KnowledgePro

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Problem Areas Addressed by
Expert Systems
 Interpretation systems
 Prediction systems
 Diagnostic systems
 Design systems
 Planning systems
 Monitoring systems
 Debugging systems
 Repair systems
 Instruction systems
 Control systems
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Expert Systems Benefits
 Improved Decision Quality
 Increased Output and Productivity
 Decreased Decision Making Time
 Increased Process(es) and Product Quality
 Capture Scarce Expertise
 Can Work with Incomplete or Uncertain Information
 Enhancement of Problem Solving and Decision Making
 Improved Decision Making Processes
 Knowledge Transfer to Remote Locations
 Enhancement of Other MIS

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Lead to

 Improved decision making

 Improved products and customer service
 Sustainable strategic advantage

 May enhance organization’s image

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Problems and Limitations of
Expert Systems
 Knowledge is not always readily available
 Expertise can be hard to extract from humans
 Expert system users have natural cognitive limits
 ES work well only in a narrow domain of
knowledge
 Knowledge engineers are rare and expensive
 Lack of trust by end-users
 ES may not be able to arrive at valid conclusions
 ES sometimes produce incorrect recommendations
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Expert System
Success Factors
 Most Critical Factors
– Champion in Management
– User Involvement and Training
 Plus
– The level of knowledge must be sufficiently high
– There must be (at least) one cooperative expert
– The problem must be qualitative (fuzzy), not quantitative
– The problem must be sufficiently narrow in scope
– The ES shell must be high quality, and naturally store
and manipulate the knowledge
– A friendly user interface
– Important and difficult enough problem 37
Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 For Success

1. Business applications justified by

strategic impact (competitive advantage)
2. Well-defined and structured applications

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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 Expert Systems Types

 Expert Systems Versus Knowledge-based

Systems
 Rule-based Expert Systems
 Frame-based Systems
 Hybrid Systems
 Model-based Systems
 Ready-made (Off-the-Shelf) Systems
 Real-time Expert Systems
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
 ES on the Web
 Provide knowledge and advice
 Help desks
 Knowledge acquisition
 Spread of multimedia-based expert
systems (Intelimedia systems)

 Support ES and other AI technologies

provided to the Internet/Intranet
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Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, Efraim Turban and Jay E. Aronson
6th ed, Copyright 2001, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ