Artificial Intelligence: Human Expertise from Machines

Abstract

On-line expert systems can capture and emulate the knowledge, reasoning, and judgment of humans in highly specialized fields. The Electric Power Research Institute has launched a broad-based exploration of potential applications intended to augment the diagnostic and decision-making capabilities of utility personnel. Artificial Intelligence (AI) differs from traditional computer technologies in that it addresses problems of structuring large amounts of knowledge and representing relationships with rules and semantic frameworks rather than with mathematical equations. It is also convergent rather than divergent, generating large amounts of input to establish a few major conclusions. The four AI fields are robotics, natural language understanding, machine vision, and expert computer systems. Integration of these fields will produce the technology of the future. 5 references.