Multi‐domain expert systems

Abstract: The current trend in expert system building is domain‐specific, i.e. there is one expert system for each problem domain. The increased involvement of computers in the decision‐making process will inevitably lead to increased demand for expert systems. Based on the current approach to expert systems building, there will be a further proliferation of domain‐specific expert systems. This is because each application area produces an expert system tailored to its requirements. This manner of producing expert systems is inadequate and an increased expectation in the performance of expert systems will eventually call for a new approach to constructing them. This paper examines the growth in the use of expert systems, looks into the limitations and problems associated with present‐day domain‐specific expert systems and suggests a multi‐domain expert system architecture as a solution to the problem of increasingly disjointed domain‐specific expert systems resulting from uncontrolled proliferation.