History Of AI In 33 Breakthroughs: The First Expert System

In the early 1960s, computer scientist Ed Feigenbaum became interested in "creating models of the thinking processes of scientists, especially the processes of empirical induction by which hypotheses and theories were inferred from data." In April 1964, he met geneticist (and Noble-prize winner) Joshua Lederberg who told him how experienced chemists use their knowledge about how compounds tend to break up in a mass spectrometer to make guesses about a compound's structure. Recalling in 1987 the development of DENDRAL, the first expert system, Lederberg remarked: "…we were trying to invent AI, and in the process discovered an expert system. This shift of paradigm, 'that Knowledge IS Power' was explicated in our 1971 paper [On Generality and Problem Solving: A Case Study Using the DENDRAL Program], and has been the banner of the knowledge-based-system movement within AI research from that moment." Expert systems represented a new stage in the evolution of AI, shifting from its initial emphasis on general problem-solvers focused on expressing in code human reasoning, i.e., drawing inferences and arriving at logical conclusions.