2.4.2+Artificial+Intelligence+and+Expert+Systems


 * 2.4.2 Artificial intelligence and expert systems**

**//Social and ethical issues//**

Students must study and evaluate the social and ethical issues involved in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and expert systems. These may include:
 *  responsibility for the performance of an expert system—knowledge engineer, informant, programmer, company that sold it, the buyer/consumer


 *  value of the development of AI as a field, for example, whether it is an appropriate place to put economic resources


 *  ethical issues of various applications of AI, for example, replacement of human workers, handing decision-making tasks to a computer


 *  social impact of the use of “smart” machines on everyday life


 *  ethical issues related to military applications of AI, for example, smart weapons, reconnaissance, decision making


 *  implications of creative production by computers using AI, for example, Aaron, an expert system, creates visual art


 *  access to the knowledge base underlying an inference engine in an expert system, for example, whether people affected by decisions made using an expert system should have access to the rules by which the decision was made.

**//Knowledge of technology//**

In order to study and evaluate the social and ethical issues involved in the use of AI and expert systems, the student must have an understanding of related technological concepts. These may include:
 *  key terms—AI, Turing test, parallel processing, machine learning, natural language, common-sense knowledge, agent, pattern recognition, expert system, knowledge base, inference engine, heuristics, fuzzy logic, knowledge engineer, domain


 *  storage requirements for common-sense knowledge


 *  processing requirements for AI


 *  collection/creation of a knowledge base


 *  creation of an inference engine (for example, if/then rules, fuzzy logic)


 *  identifying domains that are suitable for expert systems.