Why Engineers Should Not Use Artificial Intelligence

It can be said that the most promising field within computer science is Artificial Intelligence, often simply known as AI. Some will interpret this as meaning that AI is a field that holds great promise. Others interpret this as meaning that AI is a field whose practitioners make great promises. Recently conferences, journals and newspapers articles have contained suggestions that AI offers special new techniques that can make drastic changes in the role of computer systems in the v/orld. This paper presents a more skeptical view. It argues that (a) the terminology used in many AI discussions is poor, (b) that many techniques widely touted as revolutionary are ad hoc, “cut and try,” methods that will not lead to trustworthy products, (c) that many claims about AI and expert systems are exaggerated, and (d) that the fundamental research is more philosophical than practical. Most important, it concludes that many applications being tackled using ad hoc, heuristic methods can be solved using conventional systematic analysis and sound engineering practice.