Cambridge O Level Computer Science · Syllabus 2210 · Automated and Emerging Technologies
Inference Engine
What is Inference Engine?
The reasoning component of an expert system; it applies the rules in the rule base to the facts supplied by the user, drawing on the knowledge base, and works towards a conclusion, generating further questions where information is missing.
This definition is part of the Automated and Emerging Technologies chapter in Cambridge O Level Computer Science.
Inference Engine 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.
Common mistakes with Inference Engine
- M20. “The knowledge base and the rule base are the same component — and the inference engine stores the knowledge.” Why wrong Three separate components are being merged. The knowledge base holds facts; the rule base holds the rules that draw conclusions from facts; the inference engine holds neither — it is the reasoning process that consults both. Say instead “The inference engine searches the rule base for rules whose conditions the supplied facts satisfy, and applies them using knowledge from the knowledge base.”