This article gives an overview of two recent events on the validation and verification of knowledge-based systems: (1) the 1997 European Symposium on the Verification and Validation of Knowledge-Based Systems (EUROVAV-97) and (2) the Four-teenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence Workshop on the Verification and Validation of Knowledge- Based Systems. To give an integrated view of current research issues in this field, we organized this article along thematic lines, unifying the reports of the two separate meetings. Our report focuses on the trends that we think will be important in the near future in this field.

This article gives an overview of two recent events on the validation and verification of knowledge-based systems: (1) the 1997 European Symposium on the Verification and Validation of Knowledge-Based Systems (EUROVAV-97) and (2) the Four-teenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence Workshop on the Verification and Validation of Knowledge- Based Systems. To give an integrated view of current research issues in this field, we organized this article along thematic lines, unifying the reports of the two separate meetings. Our report focuses on the trends that we think will be important in the near future in this field.

The annual Workshop on the Validation and Verification of Knowledge-Based Systems is the leading forum for presenting research on the validation and verification of knowledge-based systems (KBSs). The 1994 workshop was significant in that there was a definitive move in the philosophical position of the workshop from a testing- and tool-based approach to KBS evaluation to that of a formal specification-based approach. This workshop included 12 full papers and 5 short papers and was attended by 35 researchers from government, industry, and academia.

The first session aimed to set the component being tested. The stage for the day's discussion by focusing variation in all three of these contexts on the issues surrounding the will lead to different types of and Verification of Knowledge-use of formal specification techniques The first paper, by Formal Specifications to Design Intelligence (AAAI-94) in Seattle, Lance Miller of SAIC, was entitled Verifiable Hybrid KBS" by Rose Gamble, Washington, marked the seventh This paper provided a with its specification, and (2) the The 1994 workshop was significant basis for the comparison of validation refinement of formal specifications in that there was a definitive move in and verification techniques to for their implementation. O'Leary, from the lows the possibility of constraining techniques for validating certain University of Southern California, the experts' choices to ensure that properties of KBSs. A paper by presented a paper on the relationship any new knowledge added is valid Alun Preece, Cliff Gossner, and T. between errors and size in KBSs. This and that the knowledge base structure Radhakrishnan (all from the University paper is among the first to address ensures the knowledge is of Aberdeen, Scotland) considered this important issue.