DENDRAL System
A DENDRAL System is an expert system that is an AI project that was developed in the 1960s.
- AKA: Dendritic Algorithm.
- Context:
- It was initially developed to study hypothesis formation and discovery in science.
- It proposed plausible candidate structures for new or unknown chemical compounds.
- It was developed at Stanford by Edward Feigenbaum, Joshua Lederberg, and Bruce Buchanan through the years 1965 to 1983.
- Its project explored the mechanization of Scientific Reasoning and Problem-Solving.
- It used a Plan-Generate-Test Search Algorithm to navigate the Domain Knowledge.
- It rivaled Human Expert Performance on certain Classes of Organic Compounds.
- Example(s):
- Counter-Example(s):
- See: Portmanteau, Organic Chemistry, Mass Spectrometry, Machine Learning, AI-powered System, Large Language Model (LLM), Natural Language Processing, Deep Learning.
References
2023
- (Wikipedia, 2023) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendral Retrieved:2023-10-29.
- Dendral was a project in artificial intelligence (AI) of the 1960s, and the computer software expert system that it produced. Its primary aim was to study hypothesis formation and discovery in science. For that, a specific task in science was chosen: help organic chemists in identifying unknown organic molecules, by analyzing their mass spectra and using knowledge of chemistry.[1] It was done at Stanford University by Edward Feigenbaum, Bruce G. Buchanan, [2] Joshua Lederberg, and Carl Djerassi, along with a team of highly creative research associates and students. [3] It began in 1965 and spans approximately half the history of AI research.[4]
The software program Dendral is considered the first expert system because it automated the decision-making process and problem-solving behavior of organic chemists.[1] The project consisted of research on two main programs Heuristic Dendral and Meta-Dendral,[4] and several sub-programs. It was written in the Lisp programming language, which was considered the language of AI because of its flexibility.[1]
Many systems were derived from Dendral, including MYCIN, MOLGEN, PROSPECTOR, XCON, and STEAMER. There are many other programs today for solving the mass spectrometry inverse problem, see List of mass spectrometry software, but they are no longer described as 'artificial intelligence', just as structure searchers.
The name Dendral is an acronym of the term "Dendritic Algorithm".[4]
- Dendral was a project in artificial intelligence (AI) of the 1960s, and the computer software expert system that it produced. Its primary aim was to study hypothesis formation and discovery in science. For that, a specific task in science was chosen: help organic chemists in identifying unknown organic molecules, by analyzing their mass spectra and using knowledge of chemistry.[1] It was done at Stanford University by Edward Feigenbaum, Bruce G. Buchanan, [2] Joshua Lederberg, and Carl Djerassi, along with a team of highly creative research associates and students. [3] It began in 1965 and spans approximately half the history of AI research.[4]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 November, 2006
- ↑ Oral history interview with Bruce G. Buchanan, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota.
- ↑ Lederberg, 1987
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Lindsay et al., 1980
1978
- (Buchanan & Feigenbaum, 1978) ⇒ Bruce G. Buchanan, Edward A. Feigenbaum. (1978). “Dendral and Meta-Dendral: Their Applications Dimension.” In: Artificial Intelligence, 11(1-2).
1971
- (Buchanan et al., 1971b) ⇒ Bruce G. Buchanan, Edward A. Feigenbaum, and Joshua Lederberg. (1971). “A Heuristic Programming Study of Theory Formation in Science.” In: IJCAI 1971: 40-50