Although supercomputers are dazzling in their power and engineering virtuosity, hardware alone will only partly achieve the eventual goal of computer scientists: the creation of systems that can mimic the decision- making powers of human beings. This goal is called AI, for artificial intelligence, and it has eluded computer programmers for decades. Now, however, even as supercomputers open up new worlds of possibility, researchers are taking major strides toward making their machines both smarter and more versatile. Their work has spawned a new phase of the great computer revolution that has been going on for the past 40 years or so. Whereas the early use of computers revolutionized information handling, late developments promise to better manage raw computer power and the increasing complexity of modern information technology. For the first time in history, these systems allow computers to deal with ambiguity and questions of judgment that are too subtle for conventional data processing, however powerful. After years of false starts and overblown promises, the new systems, called expert or knowledge-processing systems, have exploded onto the commercial scene in the U.S., Western Europe and Japan, which is also trying to develop AI technologies. “We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing computer power that has set us adrift in a sea of data,” says Thomas P. Kehler, CEO of IntelliCorp, a California software company. The new systems promise to put that information to work. Eighteen months ago scarcely a handful of these systems existed in business and government. Now there are an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 in daily use, and the number is increasing by 50% annually. They grew out of much touted artificial-intelligence research into human decision making in the 1960s and ’70s. AI thus far has failed to reduce human intelligence to hardware and software. But in the quest to build machines that see, move, communicate and think like humans, AI has produced offshoots with evident commercial potential. Says Herbert Schorr, who spearheads IBM’s efforts to commercialize AI: “Knowledge processing allows you to handle new, tough problems that are too costly or too painful to do with conventional programming techniques.” Commercial systems derived from artificial intelligence suddenly seem to be everywhere. Some examples: — At American Express, a new computer system contains the cloned expertise of platoons of specialists who approve unusual credit requests for the company’s estimated 20 million U.S. cardholders. For the first time, the computer will decide whether to okay the purchase of, say, a $5,000 Oriental rug by a usually prudent spender — or nix the transaction on the suspicion that the cardholder is on a buying spree. — In their supersecret war on terrorism, U.S. intelligence agents routinely consult a specially developed computer system, programmed with the arcane knowledge of a handful of terrorism experts, to anticipate and avert terrorist actions. The year-old system has reportedly helped predict terrorist attacks in Western Europe.
