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From: cmiller@SRC.Honeywell.COM (Chris Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: MYCIN, TEIRESIAS and Explanation
Message-ID: <1991Jan29.210221.7984@src.honeywell.com>
Date: 29 Jan 91 21:02:21 GMT
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Okay, here is my vague understanding:

At various points during the development of the MYCIN medical diagnostic
expert system, attempts were made to provide MYCIN with the ability to
explain/justify its decisions by providing an account of the reasoning
which led to the decision.  This account was based on a trace of the rules
which fired during the construction of the recommendation.  This
explanatory ability either was the product of, or was augmented by the
ancillary system TEIRESIAS.  The general consensus was that this approach
to making "why"-type explanations was less than satisfactory.

Here are my questions:

1.  What's right or wrong about the above paragraph?

2.  Assuming that the last sentence is accurate, what was wrong with the
approach?

3.  What's been done since??


Reading recommendations are thoroughly welcome.  Another vague source told
me that there was a full issue of an AI journal devoted to this topic a
while back, but couldn't remember what journal, how far back, or much else--
does this ring any bells for anyone?