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Concept
Knowledge-based systems
Summary
A knowledge-based system (KBS) is a computer program that reasons and uses a knowledge base to solve complex problems. The term is broad and refers to many different kinds of systems. The one common theme that unites all knowledge based systems is an attempt to represent knowledge explicitly and a reasoning system that allows it to derive new knowledge. Thus, a knowledge-based system has two distinguishing features: a knowledge base and an inference engine.
The first part, the knowledge base, represents facts about the world, often in some form of subsumption ontology (rather than implicitly embedded in procedural code, in the way a conventional computer program does). Other common approaches in addition to a subsumption ontology include frames, conceptual graphs, and logical assertions.
The second part, the inference engine, allows new knowledge to be inferred. Most commonly, it can take the form of IF-THEN rules coupled with forward chaining or backward chaining approaches. Other approaches include the use of automated theorem provers, logic programming, blackboard systems, and term rewriting systems such as CHR (Constraint Handling Rules). These more formal approaches are covered in detail in the Wikipedia article on knowledge representation and reasoning.
Knowledge-based systems were first developed by artificial intelligence researchers. These early knowledge-based systems were primarily expert systems – in fact, the term is often used interchangeably with expert systems, although there is a difference. The difference is in the view taken to describe the system:
"expert system" refers to the type of task the system is trying to assist with – to replace or aid a human expert in a complex task typically viewed as requiring expert knowledge
"knowledge-based system" refers to the architecture of the system – that it represents knowledge explicitly, rather than as procedural code.
While the earliest knowledge-based systems were almost all expert systems, the same tools and architectures can and have since been used for a whole host of other types of systems.
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