Interactive Transfer of Expertise

Whereas much early work in artificial intelligence was devoted to the search for a single, powerful, domain-independent problem-solving methodology [e.g., GPS (Newell and Simon, 1972)], subsequent efforts have stressed the use of large stores of domain-specific knowledge as a basis for high performance. The knowledge base for this sort of program [e.g., DENDRAL (Feigenbaum et al., 1971), MACSYMA (Moses, 1971)] is often assembled by hand, an ongoing task that may involve several person-years of effort. A key element in constructing a knowledge base is the transfer of expertise from a human expert to the program. Since the domain expert often knows nothing about programming, the interaction between the expert and the pertormance program usually requires the mediation of a human programmer. We have sought to create a program that could supply much the same sort of assistance as that provided by the programmer in this transfer of expertise. The result is a system called TEIRESIAS 1 (Davis, 1976; 1978; Davis et al., 1977), a large Interlisp program designed to offer assistance in the interactive transfer of knowledge from a human expert to the knowledge base of a high-performance program (Figure 9-1). Information flow from right to left is labeled explanation. This is the process by which TEIRESIAS clarifies for the expert the source of the performance program’s results and motivations for its actions. This is a prerequisite to knowledge acquisition, since the expert must first discover what the performance pro-