Hearsay-III: a domain-independent framework for expert systems

Abstract

Hearsay-III is a conceptually simple extension of the basic ideas in the Hearsay-II speech-understanding system [3]. That domain-dependent expert system was, in turn, a product of a tradition of increasingly sophisticated production-rule-based expert systems. The use of production systems to encapsulate expert knowledge in manageable and relatively independent chunks has been a strong recurrent theme in Al. These systems have steadily grown more sophisticated in their pattern-match and action languages, and in their conflict-resolution mechanisms [13]. In this paper, we describe the Hearsay-III framework, concentrating on its departures from Hearsay-II.