Expert Systems

Expert Systems

1. An Expert system is a computer system that tries to act like a human expert in a particular area E.G a doctor

2. An expert system is made up of three different parts;

   • 1. A user interface, which allows a non expert to question the expert system and get an answer back
     • 2. The Knowledge Base, which is the collection of rules and facts which are provided by human experts
       • 3. The Inference Engine, which acts like a search engine, examining the knowledge base for matches to the persons query

3. Expert systems are used in a wide range of areas such as;

   • Medical Diagnosis, in which the knowledge base would contain medical information, so the patient would query with their symptoms and the advice would be a diagnose of the patient’s illness
   • Providing financial advice - whether to invest in a business, the knowledge base would contain data about the performance of financial markets and businesses in the past
   • Helping to diagnose car problems

4. Disadvantages

   • 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 non-expert 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)

5. Advantages

   • Expert advice available all the time
     • Can be used as a training aid to increase the expertise of staff
       • Makes rational decisions without any emotional overhead
         • Efficient way of getting answers as it is automatic
   • Does not get tired or overworked.