boley@informatik.uni-kl.de (Harold Boley) (02/02/90)
What tools for building environmental expert systems are available or under development? They should support qualitative and modeling tasks in (large-scale) * data interpretation * process diagnosis, * trend extrapolation, * design/configuration, * consultation & training, in ecologically relevant domains such as * natural resources, * power supply, * meteorological effects, * population development. Ecological ES shells should also permit careful interfacing to corresponding conventional tools (e.g. database, simulation, statistics, decision-support, and networking systems). They should help assembling the knowledge of environmental experts for extracting the ecological essence from large amounts of data and suggesting possible actions. Because of the brittleness of (present) AI technology and the complexity of our ecological system, an environmental ES should only assist human decision makers, not try to intervene directly into environmental processes. Therefore, appropriate shells should (re)present knowledge bases in a well-structured manner, explain inference chains in a clear fashion, and make explicit missing information, possible errors, multiple alternatives, and decision tradeoffs. Standard Disclaimer, Harold Boley.