Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!peterr From: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) Newsgroups: net.ai Subject: Expectations of expert system technology Message-ID: <1824@utcsrgv.UUCP> Date: Sun, 24-Jul-83 01:41:35 EDT Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.1824 Posted: Sun Jul 24 01:41:35 1983 Date-Received: Sun, 24-Jul-83 02:53:19 EDT Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto Lines: 32 From a recent headhunting flyer sent to some AAAI members: "We have been retained by a major Financial Institution, located in New York City. They are interested in building the support staff for their money market traders and are looking for qualified candidates for the following positions: A Senior AI Researcher who has experience in knowledge rep'n and expert systems. The ideal candidate would have a graduate degree in CS - AI with a Psychology (particularly cognitive processes), Cultural Anthropology, or comparable background. This person will start by being a consultant in Human Factors and would interact between the Traders and the Systems they use. Two new Xerox 1100 computers have been purchased and experience in LISP programming is necessary (with INTERLISP-D preferred). This person will have their own personal LISP machine. The goal of this position will be to analyze how Traders think and to build trading support (expert) systems geared to the individual Trader's style." Two other job descriptions are given for the same project, for an economist and an MBA with CS (database, communications, and systems) and Operations Research background. The fact that the co. would buy the 1100's without consulting their future user and the tone of the description prompts me to wonder if the co. is treating expert system technology as an engineering discipline which can produce results in a relatively short order rather than the experimental field it appears to be. Particularly troubling is the problem domain for this system-- I would expect such traders to make extensive use of knowledge about politics and economic policy on a number of levels, not easy knowledge to represent. I'm not an expert systems builder by any means and may be underestimating the technology... does anyone think this co. is not expecting too much? (Replies to the net, please)