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For some reason I was under the impression that Expert Systems were in some way a sort of evolutionary dead end and weren't used any more. Is this not the case

For some reason I was under the impression that Expert Systems were in some way a sort of evolutionary dead end and weren't used any more. Is this not the case?

jimktrains2 7y ago
Rule based systems can be extremely useful for certain types of problems. I'm working on incorporating a rule based system into our business code to allow easier changes to that logic by the people it affects. As for expert systems in terms of ai, I do think that's gone by the wayside, but probably not entirely gone (ditto for decision trees).
- maxdemarzi 7y ago
  You can mix rule based systems and decision trees (well, decision streams) quite nicely in a Graph. Watch the 15 min video on https://maxdemarzi.com/2018/10/08/dynamic-rule-based-decision-trees-in-neo4j-part-3/ https://maxdemarzi.com/2018/10/08/dynamic-rule-based-decisio... for more details.
- felixyz 7y ago
  Would you mind sharing which rule-based system you're working with? IMO Answer Set Programming is very useful for things like this. The language is small and maps straightforwardly onto intuitive ways of thinking about rules. It's closer to Prolog than things like CLIPS but really neither forward- nor backwards-chaining. It's hiding all operational specifics from you, which makes it very scalable as a representation. I think it's something many teams would do well to reach for when they take a first stab at implementing business logic in a rule-based format.
  - jimktrains2 7y ago
    For the moment it's just a tiny language and interpreter I've been building, taking inspiration from other rule-based systems. We wanted something that'd run in our application and we're running PHP (:-/) so I didn't have too many options. (I'd really love to open source it once it's complete, but we'll see.) I'll have to look into Answer Set Programming more as I havn't seen it before. Thanks!
    - felixyz 7y ago
      Cool!
WanderPanda 7y ago
In Germany they actually managed to get grasp on major parts of a government funding aimed to advance ai research here. I figure old professors riding the current hype wave can be quite convincing to incompetent officials despite not having anything to do with recent achievements...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- j-pb 7y ago
  I'm curious which projects you're referring to, do you have any pointers? It'd be interesting to know which university still does expert systems.
blihp 7y ago
They fell out of favor after one of the previous 'AI winters' but still have their uses.
sgt101 7y ago
The challenge is scale, if you aren't using a very flat and controlled (database like) rule system - so more like a knowledge store than a reasoning system - then you run into big problems of complexity real fast. But even worse is the brittleness. Everything is fine, until it suddenly isn't and then you discover you can't touch anything without everything blowing up. On the other hand, if you have a system of case statements or if thens that is a bit opaque (or very opaque) refactoring them to use an expert system is a very good idea. And, if you have a homebrew knowledge store then using a rule system is also a good idea - but now-a-days you might want to try building a knowledge graph instead, mostly because that's v.trendy.
mindcrime 7y ago
Is this not the case? Not really, no. This whole industry is very fad driven, and there is a tendency to always aggressively jump on the "new shiny"... and once that happens, anything deemed "old" gets treated - by some members of the community - as though it is completely dead, obsolete, verboten, whatever. But rarely is that actually the case. Quite often "old" tools and techniques are quite useful for specific things. As an example, the box-end wrench didn't become useless because the air-ratchet was invented. As another commentor said, "use the right tool for the job". All of that said, sometimes the older techniques do legitimately have major shortcomings, or limitations, or may simply be superseded by better tools. As somebody else said, one of the biggest limitations to some older approaches to "expert systems" was making them scale. Some of that we got for free thanks to Moore's Law. In other cases, we may still be waiting for some new algorithmic breakthrough or whatever. Anyway, things like CLIPS, OPS5, etc. still have uses, even if they didn't turn out to be the be-all end-all of AI as they may once have been perceived to be.

For some reason I was under the impression that Expert Systems were in some way a sort of evolutionary dead end and weren't used any more. Is this not the case?

jimktrains2 7y ago

Rule based systems can be extremely useful for certain types of problems. I'm working on incorporating a rule based system into our business code to allow easier changes to that logic by the people it affects. As for expert systems in terms of ai, I do think that's gone by the wayside, but probably not entirely gone (ditto for decision trees).

maxdemarzi 7y ago
You can mix rule based systems and decision trees (well, decision streams) quite nicely in a Graph. Watch the 15 min video on https://maxdemarzi.com/2018/10/08/dynamic-rule-based-decision-trees-in-neo4j-part-3/ https://maxdemarzi.com/2018/10/08/dynamic-rule-based-decisio... for more details.
felixyz 7y ago
Would you mind sharing which rule-based system you're working with? IMO Answer Set Programming is very useful for things like this. The language is small and maps straightforwardly onto intuitive ways of thinking about rules. It's closer to Prolog than things like CLIPS but really neither forward- nor backwards-chaining. It's hiding all operational specifics from you, which makes it very scalable as a representation. I think it's something many teams would do well to reach for when they take a first stab at implementing business logic in a rule-based format.
- jimktrains2 7y ago
  For the moment it's just a tiny language and interpreter I've been building, taking inspiration from other rule-based systems. We wanted something that'd run in our application and we're running PHP (:-/) so I didn't have too many options. (I'd really love to open source it once it's complete, but we'll see.) I'll have to look into Answer Set Programming more as I havn't seen it before. Thanks!
  - felixyz 7y ago
    Cool!

WanderPanda 7y ago

In Germany they actually managed to get grasp on major parts of a government funding aimed to advance ai research here. I figure old professors riding the current hype wave can be quite convincing to incompetent officials despite not having anything to do with recent achievements...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
j-pb 7y ago
I'm curious which projects you're referring to, do you have any pointers? It'd be interesting to know which university still does expert systems.

blihp 7y ago

They fell out of favor after one of the previous 'AI winters' but still have their uses.

sgt101 7y ago

The challenge is scale, if you aren't using a very flat and controlled (database like) rule system - so more like a knowledge store than a reasoning system - then you run into big problems of complexity real fast. But even worse is the brittleness. Everything is fine, until it suddenly isn't and then you discover you can't touch anything without everything blowing up. On the other hand, if you have a system of case statements or if thens that is a bit opaque (or very opaque) refactoring them to use an expert system is a very good idea. And, if you have a homebrew knowledge store then using a rule system is also a good idea - but now-a-days you might want to try building a knowledge graph instead, mostly because that's v.trendy.

mindcrime 7y ago

Is this not the case? Not really, no. This whole industry is very fad driven, and there is a tendency to always aggressively jump on the "new shiny"... and once that happens, anything deemed "old" gets treated - by some members of the community - as though it is completely dead, obsolete, verboten, whatever. But rarely is that actually the case. Quite often "old" tools and techniques are quite useful for specific things. As an example, the box-end wrench didn't become useless because the air-ratchet was invented. As another commentor said, "use the right tool for the job". All of that said, sometimes the older techniques do legitimately have major shortcomings, or limitations, or may simply be superseded by better tools. As somebody else said, one of the biggest limitations to some older approaches to "expert systems" was making them scale. Some of that we got for free thanks to Moore's Law. In other cases, we may still be waiting for some new algorithmic breakthrough or whatever. Anyway, things like CLIPS, OPS5, etc. still have uses, even if they didn't turn out to be the be-all end-all of AI as they may once have been perceived to be.