| Abstract: | Summary The paper is an examination of the problems and promise of knowledge creation and representation in the Human Services. It is the general proposition of the paper that expertise found in welfare agencies can be exploited to develop expert system software. The contention of the paper is (hat the knowledge base of a system is never complete, that disciplines vary in terms of what constitutes acceptable levels of proof and measurement of certainty; that limitations intrinsic to an expert system are not limitations of design, but are limitations demonstrating conceptual and theoretical limits in the simulation of dynamic expertise; and finally that an acceptance of the limitations of knowledge acquisition and representation may paradoxically lead to the design of usable expert systems. |
