What are Expert Systems?

In today’s world, every company or its management or any individual in same way or the other is dependent on the use of the computer and its various applications. It was the decade of the 1980’s when the coming up of the expert systems was observed by the different users of the world. The experts systems are one of the most enjoy – able applications of the computer and help a great deal in the transformation of the way the corporations developed their software.

The first commercially acclaimed expert system was DEC’s ‘XCON and this was done in the year 1981. It was in the year 1983 when for the first time the expert systems building tools were offered for the sale. But after this year i.e. in the year 1984, the number of the successfully fielded expert systems mushroomed and this mainly occurred because of the high level development tools, which at that time became very much widely available. The years that followed this scenario i.e. in the year 1985 and the year 1986, observed a very large and a very good response from the various types of the users and these were at that time referred to as the hot years but after these years a great dip was observed in the graph of response from the users and these were referred to as the cold years.

But it was the decade of the 1990’s when a huge response was observed and the market of the expert systems developed a lot and during this, the expert systems were largely accepted by almost all type of the users. The expert system technology is mainly based on the research discipline of the artificial intelligence. This artificial intelligence is actually a branch of the computer science and mainly deals with the design and the implementation of the different types of the programs.

Meaning and the Definition Of Expert Systems
From the time of the origin of the expert systems, different types of the persons who use it i.e. the users tend to have an under – standing about the expert system depending on the type of the work in which that particular user is using the expert system. Hence, it can be said that the different users have different definitions of the expert system. There is no particular definition of the expert system which has the ability to completely fulfill or satisfy all the queries of the various users.

According to Peter Jackson, “an expert system can be defined as the computer program that has the ability to represent and reason with the knowledge of some of the particular subject specialist with a view to solving problems or giving any type of the advice.

In general an expert system can be referred to as the technology that has the ability to make the computer programming very easier in the nature and also very effective in the working. The expert system also helps in carrying out the transformation in the computing with the help of the movement of the various programming techniques beyond the numerical programming into a realm of the logical, symbolic programming.

A very better view about the expert systems can be obtained by under – standing the concept of the expert system given by Robert Barwoman and David Glover. According to both of them, expert system can be defined as the “highly specialized computer systems having the ability of stimulating that particular element of the human specialist’s knowledge and reasoning that can be formulated into the knowledge chunks, characterized by a set of the human facts and the different heuristic rules.

According to Bruce Buchanan and Reid Smith, an expert system can be defined as the computer program that –
1. Has the ability to explain both what it knows and the reasons for its answers.
2. Performs well in the problem area.
3. Reasons with the domain – specific knowledge.
4. Uses the domain – specific methods that are heuristic in the nature and are also following the different types of the procedures that are algorithmic.
5. Has the ability to retain the flexibility.