Obscuring the human costs of expert systems

The growing number of artificial-intelligence applications in industry creates a tension between the hopeful perspective that the white-collar workforce will fill the increasing need for knowledge, and the reality that experts will increasingly be displaced by expert systems. The rhetoric of those who promote expert systems obscures the tension between the social programs of training and education, on the one hand, and technical fixes, on the other. To make this tension explicit, we look more closely at the criteria that applied researchers, sales engineers, marketing managers and corporate staff use to justify knowledge based system development. Examining their rationale emphasizes their attempts to advance, in whatever way they can, the technology that they identify so thoroughly with continuing research funding and growing sales orders