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AI as the bridge to fix expert systems. Now I've heard it all! Obligatory video (sound familiar?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLHc7rlac2s https://www.yout

AI as the bridge to fix expert systems. Now I've heard it all! Obligatory video (sound familiar?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLHc7rlac2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLHc7rlac2s

cjbgkagh 1y ago
I think I’m missing your point. Perhaps we don’t share the same understanding of what I mean by AI and Expert Systems. I wouldn’t call expert systems AI even though the early use of AI referred to symbolic reasoners used in expert systems. If you are capturing domain knowledge from an expert and creating a system around it, what would you call that? I think modern AI will help deliver on the promise of expert systems, and I don’t think modern AI obviates the utility of such systems. Instead of a decision support system for human users it’s a decision support system for an AI agent. The same AI agent can interface with human users with a more familiar chat interface - hence acting as a bridge. Most users will not be able to write Multidimensional Expressions or SPARQL queries and with an AI intermediary they won’t need to.
- glitchc 1y ago
  Expert Systems (TM) was trademarked (abandoned now) way way back in 1982. It was a licensed term that meant something very specific to those with a long background in technology. You sound new to the space and thus want to reinvent the term for your own purposes, which is a fine thing really, but an understanding of the history behind it may save you a great deal of grief. tl;dr, expert systems as a concept was hot! As an actual implementation, it was a colossal failure. The new AI hype train has always contained echoes of expert systems, and I was giddy with excitement to see someone complete the loop. The serpent eats its own tail after all. Which just goes to show that folks would be considerably more enlightened if they just read a bit more history.
  - cjbgkagh 1y ago
    I’m not new to the space, I’ve been working in tech for a very long time. I was into ontologies since the late 90s. And I agree they were in general a colossal failure, or at least didn’t live up to the general hype, they did find success in various niches and did have a big impact on the world. Tim Bernes-Lee was coming out with the semantic web stuff in 99, OWL ontologies is 2004. I did some interesting things with Freebase. I built out huge entity models and created an entirety extraction system to a help power a search engine for large scale cataloging which saw real world use. While not my work Bing and Wolfram Alpha did use such systems to improve their search/utility. Google bought Freebase and incorporated its functionality. The DoD did have success with it, and for a while Boeing had an interesting system but AFAIK they lost a lot of expertise and it atrophied somewhat. It was in general a library science thing, like search engines were, even today I wish I could disambiguate my search queries to be able to specify which word overloading I’m referring to, be it Java the language, the city, or the coffee. I’ve spent a decent amount of time trying to introduce these concepts to regular people and have long considered it generally hopeless. I went on to work in ML and I’ve long thought it would be easier to teach a computer to use these systems than regular people. At least AI is at a point now where it can act as a bridge.
  - mark_l_watson 1y ago
    I made a lot of money selling expert system tools between 1982 and 1986. Good times.

AI as the bridge to fix expert systems. Now I've heard it all! Obligatory video (sound familiar?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLHc7rlac2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLHc7rlac2s

cjbgkagh 1y ago

I think I’m missing your point. Perhaps we don’t share the same understanding of what I mean by AI and Expert Systems. I wouldn’t call expert systems AI even though the early use of AI referred to symbolic reasoners used in expert systems. If you are capturing domain knowledge from an expert and creating a system around it, what would you call that? I think modern AI will help deliver on the promise of expert systems, and I don’t think modern AI obviates the utility of such systems. Instead of a decision support system for human users it’s a decision support system for an AI agent. The same AI agent can interface with human users with a more familiar chat interface - hence acting as a bridge. Most users will not be able to write Multidimensional Expressions or SPARQL queries and with an AI intermediary they won’t need to.

glitchc 1y ago
Expert Systems (TM) was trademarked (abandoned now) way way back in 1982. It was a licensed term that meant something very specific to those with a long background in technology. You sound new to the space and thus want to reinvent the term for your own purposes, which is a fine thing really, but an understanding of the history behind it may save you a great deal of grief. tl;dr, expert systems as a concept was hot! As an actual implementation, it was a colossal failure. The new AI hype train has always contained echoes of expert systems, and I was giddy with excitement to see someone complete the loop. The serpent eats its own tail after all. Which just goes to show that folks would be considerably more enlightened if they just read a bit more history.
- cjbgkagh 1y ago
  I’m not new to the space, I’ve been working in tech for a very long time. I was into ontologies since the late 90s. And I agree they were in general a colossal failure, or at least didn’t live up to the general hype, they did find success in various niches and did have a big impact on the world. Tim Bernes-Lee was coming out with the semantic web stuff in 99, OWL ontologies is 2004. I did some interesting things with Freebase. I built out huge entity models and created an entirety extraction system to a help power a search engine for large scale cataloging which saw real world use. While not my work Bing and Wolfram Alpha did use such systems to improve their search/utility. Google bought Freebase and incorporated its functionality. The DoD did have success with it, and for a while Boeing had an interesting system but AFAIK they lost a lot of expertise and it atrophied somewhat. It was in general a library science thing, like search engines were, even today I wish I could disambiguate my search queries to be able to specify which word overloading I’m referring to, be it Java the language, the city, or the coffee. I’ve spent a decent amount of time trying to introduce these concepts to regular people and have long considered it generally hopeless. I went on to work in ML and I’ve long thought it would be easier to teach a computer to use these systems than regular people. At least AI is at a point now where it can act as a bridge.
- mark_l_watson 1y ago
  I made a lot of money selling expert system tools between 1982 and 1986. Good times.