Second Generation Expert Systems, Explanations, Arguments and Archaeology.

Abstract

: It is claimed that second generation expert systems provide a means of solving some of the problems put forward recently by writers on AI and archaeology (Huggett 1985, Huggett and Baker 1985, Baker 1986, Reilly 1985). Various kinds of second generation expert system are presented - in particular a variant I call the arguing expert system (AES). A program - the Argument Support Program for Archaeology (ASPA) - is proposed to illustrate these ideas. It is shown to provide possible solutions to (a) the problem of the inadequacy of the abstraction captured in the knowledge base of an expert system and the attendant danger of its fossilization and (b) the problem raised by the inability of expert systems to model nondeductive reasoning. The former is dealt with by giving the user the chance to get the system to 'change its mind' by engaging the system in a sustained argument exchange. This has the effect of allowing the user to supplement or modify the knowledge base in a principled way ..