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From: franka@mntgfx.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: dear abby....
Message-ID: <549@franka.mntgfx.MENTOR.COM>
Date: Mon, 2-Mar-87 15:24:38 EST
Article-I.D.: franka.549
Posted: Mon Mar  2 15:24:38 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Mar-87 20:24:28 EST
References: <178@arcsun.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mntgfx.UUCP (Frank A. Adrian)
Organization: Mentor Graphics, Beaverton, OR
Lines: 18
Keywords: justification in expert systems

In article <178@arcsun.UUCP> roy@arcsun.UUCP (Roy Masrani) writes:
>"expert system" ... must be able to explain its decisions.
VS.
>... expert system need only make decisions that equal human experts.
> An explanation facility is optional".


Well, given the level of explaination most human experts give (e.g., "Well,
I did it this way because it felt right," or "Gosh, I don't know, it
seemed like a good idea at the time."), I tend to agree with number two.
In fact, has anyone done an expert system which automatically spits out
one of the above phrases (or any number of similar phrases) as an
"explaination"?  Could bring the damn things closer to Turing capability
as percieved by the user...  "What the hell are YOU asking for," might
get the proper amount of arrogance I've seen in most experts (:-).

Frank Adrian
Mentor Graphics, Inc.