Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
technical issues of acquiring this knowledge, representing it, and using it
appropriately to construct and explain lines-of-reasoning, are important problems
in the design of knowledge-based systems.
In the 1980's, AI research developed prosperously. Expert systems were more
and more widely used, development tools for expert systems appeared, and
industrial AI thrived. Especially in 1982, the Japan's Ministry of International
Trade and Industry initiated the Fifth Generation Computer Systems project,
which dramatically promoted the development of AI. Many countries also made
similar plans for research in AI and intelligent computers. China also started the
research of intelligent computer systems as an 863 National High-Tech Program.
During the past more than 50 years, great progress has been made of AI
research. Theories of Heuristic Searching Strategies, Non-monotonic Reasoning,
Machine Learning, etc. have been proposed. Applications of AI, especially
Expert Systems, Intelligent Decision Making, Intelligent Robots, Natural
Language Understandings, etc. also promoted the research of AI. Presently,
Knowledge Engineering based on knowledge and information processing is a
remarkable characteristic of AI.
However, just as the development of any other discipline, there are also
obstacles in the history of AI research. Even from the beginning, AI researchers
had been criticized for their being too optimistic. In the early years of AI research,
Herbert Simon and Allen Newell, two of the AI pioneers, optimistically predicted
that:
Within ten years, a digital computer will be the world's chess champion, unless
the rules bar it from competition.
Within ten years, a digital computer will discover and prove an important new
mathematical theorem.
Within ten years, a digital computer will write music that will be accepted by
critics as processing as possessing considerable aesthetic value.
Within ten years, most theories in psychology will take the form of computer
programs, or of qualitative statements about the characteristics of computer
programs.
These expectations haven't been completely realized even till today. 3 year
old little child can easily figure out a tree in a picture, while a most powerful
super computer only reaches middle level as children in tree recognition. It is
