An explanation facility for today's expert systems

Abstract

The authors discuss explanation facility types found in most expert systems and shells used today, referring to these as practice systems, since they represent current practice in expert system work. Practice systems include nonresearch expert systems (being developed every day in industry) as well as nonresearch expert system shells. They maintain that an extensive explanation facility meeting the obligations of a practice system's role can be implemented using only practice technology. They discuss the relationship of journalism to explanation, showing that explanation facility tasks (roles) on current practice expert systems and shells resemble a newswriter's tasks, as both involve presenting users or readers with accurate, objective, noninteractive accounts of events. In news reporting, events are pieces of news. In expert-system explanation, events are actions taken by expert systems. The authors present a journalistic explanation facility, Joe, which is part of AGNESS (a generalized network-based expert system shell), under development at the University of Minnesota.