Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!serene!pnet12!bstev From: bstev@pnet12.cts.com (Barry Stevens) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Why? Message-ID: <190@serene.CTS.COM> Date: 18 Sep 88 20:56:11 GMT Sender: root@serene.CTS.COM Organization: People-Net [pnet12], Del Mar, Ca. Lines: 54 markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes: > Why does anyone want artificial intelligence? > A major determinant of how fragmented science is is how much communication >takes place. I submit here that the information explosion is for the most part >an explosion in redundancy brought about by a communication bottleneck. Our >goal is then to find a way to open up this bottle neck. It is here, again that >AI (especially in relation to intelligent data bases) may come to the rescue. Along with the need to handle increasing amounts of information, comes an increased need for performance: Timeliness -- the speed at which information must be processed has increased dramatically. (e.g. computer console messages in a commercial datacenter with multiple CPUs need to be analyzed at the rates of 5 to 50 per SECOND. ) Accuracy -- decisions must be made at accuracies that are beyond the sustained ability of human experts (e.g process control systems needing 0.1% accuracy in set point values for hundreds of variables set every minute for 24 hrs/day) Cost -- expert knowledge must be employed in situations where the presence of experts can't be afforded (e.g. stock or commodity trading systems based on expert systems and/or neural nets) Availability- most experts are fond of their weekends and evenings, and make a very big deal over their vacations. AI methods can make their skills available 24 hrs, 365 days/year. I have surveyed many companies in their use of AI techniques. My personal feeling, supported by no one else at this point, is that the "why" of AI will be answered when the following application is implemented and becomes widespread: A mid level manager must analyze a budget report once a week. He uses the rules he follows as the basis for an expert system: "If the variance is greater than $1000 in Acct 101, OR the TOTAL in Line 5 is greater than 10% of plan, OR ... " an then delegates the expert system and his rule base of 10, 15, or 20 rules to HIS SECRETARY, AI and expert systems will have come of age in industry. The big question will be answered not by robotics applications, or speaker independent speech recognition, or writer-independent character recognition, or even smart data bases. (Most professionals don't use data bases), but by simple tasks, done by almost everyone in the work environment, taken over or delegated to someone else as a result of AI. The AI applications that do that will propogate across the workplace like LOTUS or other truly horizontal applications. UUCP: {crash ncr-sd}!pnet12!bstev ARPA: crash!pnet12!bstev@nosc.mil INET: bstev@pnet12.cts.com