How did 'expert systems' bring AI back from the dead in the 1980s - and then almost kill it again?
Companies spent billions on programs that could diagnose diseases and configure computers. Then reality set in.
The answer
Expert systems, which encoded human specialists' knowledge as if-then rules, dominated AI in the 1980s. Systems like R1/XCON at Digital Equipment Corporation saved the company an estimated $40 million per year by automatically configuring VAX computer orders. By 1985, corporations were spending over $1 billion annually on expert systems, and two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies had AI projects underway. However, these systems proved brittle, expensive to maintain, and incapable of learning - they could only apply rules they were explicitly given. When the specialized LISP machine hardware market collapsed around 1987, the expert systems bubble burst, contributing to the second AI winter.
Source: Stanford University - History of AI
- expert-systems
- 1980s
- history
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