DENDRAL and Meta-DENDRAL: Roots of Knowledge Systems and Expert System Applications

During AFs first decade (1956-1966), the task environments in which AI scientists investigated their basic science issues were generally idealized "clean" task environments, such as propositional calculus theorem proving and puzzle solving. After the mid-19605, a bolder and more applied inclination to choose complex real-world problems as task environments became evident. These efforts were both successful and exciting, in two ways. First, the AI programs were achieving high levels of competence at solving certain problems that human specialists found challenging (the excitement was that our AI techniques were indeed powerful and that we were taking the first steps toward the dream of the very smart machine). Second, these complex real-world task environments were proving to be excellent at stimulating basic science questions for the AI science, in knowledge representation, problem solving, and machine learning. To recognize and illuminate this trend, the Artificial Intelligence Journal in 1978 sponsored a special issue on applications of artificial intelligence.