Computing: Limitations and Promising Developments

Tutorial	Grinnell College	Fall, 2006

Computing: Limitations, Developments, and Ethical Issues

Second Writing Assignment

Report Topic by: Thursday, October 26
Paper Due: Tuesday, October 31

Much of the class discussion in October has focused upon some general themes and approaches of artificial intelligence. This assignment asks you to investigate a specific expert system in somewhat more detail. More specifically, you should follow these steps.

Explore sources in the library to find information on an expert system or an artificial intelligence program. For example, you might focus on an application, such as
- a chess-playing program, such as Deep Blue,
- a medical-diagnosis program, such as MYCIN,
- a geological-formation program, such as PROSPECTOR,
- a chemical-analysis program, such as DENDRAL,
- a computer-configuration program, such as XCON,
- a speech-recognition program,
- a language-translation program, or
- a robot-control program.
Write a 2-3 page paper that describes your specific example program. Your discussion should include:
- an identification of the problem the program attempts to address,
- a high-level view of how the program works (e.g., rule-based expert system, frame-based searching program, neural network, etc.)
- a review of how successfully the program solves the targeted problem.

In order to encourage an early start on this paper, you should report your topic to the instructor by 8:00 am on Thursday, October 26. This report should indicate both the artificial intelligence program that you will discuss and the source(s) you have found that describes that system. (If, despite considerable effort, you have been unable to identify a topic by this deadline, you should report what work you have done, and you should make an appointment to see the instructor on Wednesday, October 25.)

You should write this paper at a level appropriate for others in the class. Thus, you can assume your reader has understood material discussed in class and in readings, but you should not assume any ideas specific to your selected program.

As in all papers, the paper's introduction should indicate how your material is organized, as well as identify the main topic of the paper. Also, following normal practice, you must cite other people's ideas using in-text citations, and you must include a bibliography.

You must use word processing software to prepare your paper, you must turn in 2 copies of your paper, and your paper must be printed on a good-quality printer.

This document is available on the World Wide Web as

http://www.walker.cs.grinnell.edu/courses/tutorial.fa06/writing/paper2.shtml

created 23 August 1997 last revised 12 October 2006

For more information, please contact Henry M. Walker at walker@cs.grinnell.edu.