Cambridge IGCSE Computer Science · Syllabus 0478 · Automated and Emerging Technologies
Interface
What is Interface?
The component of an expert system through which the user and the system communicate; it presents the questions the inference engine has generated, accepts the facts and answers the user enters, and displays the final conclusion.
This definition is part of the Automated and Emerging Technologies chapter in Cambridge IGCSE Computer Science.
Interface in context
An expert system is an AI system that reproduces the decision-making of a human expert within one narrow domain. The syllabus specifies exactly four components: a knowledge base, a rule base, an inference engine and an interface. The knowledge base stores facts about the domain; the rule base stores the rules that say what follows from those facts; the inference engine applies the rules to the information supplied and reasons towards a conclusion; and the interface is how the user and the system communicate. Learn all four names and one sentence for each — the syllabus names exactly these four.
Questions students ask about Interface
Is an expert system really AI if it never learns?
Yes. The syllabus says AI can include the ability to learn and adapt — not that it must. An expert system collects data through its interface, holds rules for using that data, and reasons with them to reach a conclusion. That is three of the four characteristics, and it is squarely within the definition.