Practical Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems at NAVSEA

摘要

This paper examines the historical oscillations of Artificial Intelligence. It shows how to select problems which can be solved with the aid of Expert Systems; it also identifies areas such as common sense reasoning, automated machine learning, and complex design synthesis which are beyond the state of the art now and will be for years to come. Artificial Intelligence programs are able to diagnose faults and classify solutions in narrowly defined specialties even when the data is 'fuzzy', but they have not exhibited autonomous 'thinking'. Just as conventional computer programming has alleviated the burden of calculating, AI Expert Systems will streamline the processing of logical data. Both of these computer techniques are cost effective when they are applied to well defined tasks since computers are faster than people and error free for routine tasks. Expert Systems require significant development effort, but with then we can perform tasks which were not possible before. These programs are fundamentally different than those which performed numerical calculations in the past. They process information - the rules by which equipment and people act. Certain situations will always occur which require a 'real expert', but every engineer can use an assistant and they are being developed.