Expert System

A computer system emulating the decision-making ability of a human expert through the use of reasoning, leveraging an encoding of domain-specific knowledge most commonly represented by sets of if-then rules rather than procedural code. The term “expert system” was used largely during the 1970s and ’80s amidst great enthusiasm about the power and promise of rule-based systems that relied on a “knowledge base” of domain-specific rules and rule-chaining procedures that map observations to conclusions or recommendations.