Introduction (VIP Code: 76514)
Artificial Intelligence, neural networks, fuzzy logic and expert system technology have been promising to revolutionise the way we live our lives for the last few decades. In reality the technology is still in its infancy and practical day-to-day applications are either very expensive or require specific scientific/mathematical expertise to operate.

Expert System Builder (ESB) is a FREEWARE program intended to simplify the development of practical fuzzy decision support systems (or expert systems) that can be used in the day-to-day decision making processes of an organisation. The resultant system may be deployed locally on a single computer or deployed onto the internet. You can see an online working demonstration here and here.

Overview
Expert System Builder develops smart questionnaires that can give advice on a particular subject in the same way (almost) as a human expert would. As a trivial example consider the questions you might ask a person in order to recommend a book to them on the subject of AI. They might be something like like the following:

1. What subjects would you like the book you are buying to cover ?
a) Expert Systems
b) Neural Networks
c) Genetic Algorithms
d) Fuzzy Logic
e) General AI
2. How much can you afford to spend ?
a) $10 to $20 (£7 to £15)
b) $21 to $40 (£14 to £27)
c) $41 to $60 (£27 to £40)
d) $61 to $100 (£40 to £67)
e) $101 to $150 (£67 to £100)
f) More than the above
3. Select the level of information you want in the book
a) Beginner (or introductory)
b) Medium
c) Advanced (in depth information)
etc...

The recommendation that you would make, based on your expert knowledge of AI books, would be dependent on the answers given to each question. It is these types of 'smart questionnaires' that ESB is able to develop.

Expert System Builder - Development Process
The standard ESB system is PC based and provides the core functionaility for developing ESB systems whether they become internet based or PC based systems. The development cycles is as follows:

1. Develop the Questions using the ESB Question Editor.
2. Populate the knowledge base using the ESB Knowledge Acquisition Program.
3. Deploy the system to your users using the PC based ESB User Interface Program or onto the internet using JavaESB© (version 1 or 2) or ESBPro©.

Navigation
The navigation pane (see left) appears on all of the main pages within this site and is intended to simplify navigation. All of the information you need should be contained within these pages or within the Standard PC ESB help pages.

Online Tutorial
The online tutorial provides a detailed step-by-step guide (with examples) for producing an expert system using ESB. Topics include the development of the questionnaire, strategies for identifying questions, question types and their uses, creating dependences, importance, developing the knowledge base, naming records, etc. The tutorial can be found here.

Discussion Forums
The new online discussion forums are the place to get help from other users, suggest improvements and discuss general topics on AI. Please post your questions and comments here as it is difficult to respond to all e-mails. The discussion forums are available here.