AI Forward chaining
In the last post I described a little about the backward chaining approach used in EarnestAI. Today I wanted to say a bit about Forward Chaining. Forward chaining is basically a lazy approach to finding an answer. The system starts with a question to a known answer such as “Who created you?”
The system then presents a series of preset questions, for example “Do you mean who is my creator?”
The user answers Yes, and the system then moves onto the next question. When all the questions are complete, the system then compares the answers against a set of stored solutions and decides which solution is best defined by the answers given.
Its a very accurate process in reality, but can also be confusing and irritating for the user. The best example I have seen to demonstrate this is “Are you male?” Yes, “Are you pregnant?”, No, “Are you female?”
You get the picture, the system has little or no understanding of the questions it poses, and the onus is on the knowledge engineer to devise the question structure so as to be as unconfusing as possible.
The forward chaining method in its simplest for is both highly accurate, highly irritating and also unable to branch to different lines of questionsing.
It is my hope to refine this approach in EarnestAI to allow a sort of hybrid FWD Chaining. Basically, I am testing the concept of using a BAckward chaining algorithm that is executed after every answer. The results will look forward to possibly proved solutions and then switch the path of questioning to a more realistic route. For instance, if Earnest asks, “does it have 4 legs”, he will look forward to all solutions proved true by this question and then remove questions in the current question path that no longer relate to 4 legged animals.
Initial tests are good, but there are ome risks involved because once again, we are leaving it to the “heuristic reasoning” capability of the backward chaining engine to not ommit important questions.
Oh well, hope that you enjoyed the post.
by for now
Scot
Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, Forward Chaining, PHP EXPERT SYSTEM