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Michael R. Wick

Possible papers associated with this exact author name in Arrow. This page groups case-insensitive exact name matches and is not a full identity disambiguation profile.

3 papers

1 author row

KER Journal 1994 Journal Article

Explanation as a Primary Task in Problem Solving

Michael R. Wick

Abstract This article summarizes the author's perspective on the discussions that occurred at the Workshop on Explanation and Problem Solving held during the Thirteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*. Motivated by those discussions, the article argues for the promotion of expert system explanation from a secondary task, used mainly for communication, to a primary task that is tightly integrated with the domain problem solving of the expert system.

Details DOI

AIJ Journal 1992 Journal Article

Reconstructive expert system explanation

Michael R. Wick
William B. Thompson

Existing explanation facilities are typically far more appropriate for knowledge engineers engaged in system maintenance than for end-users of the system. This is because the explanation is little more than a trace of the detailed problem-solving steps. An alternative approach recognizes that an effective explanation often needs to substantially reorganize the actual line of reasoning and bring to bear additional information to support the result. Explanation itself becomes a complex problem-solving process that depends not only on the actual line of reasoning, but also on additional knowledge of the domain. This paper presents a new computational model of explanation and argues that it results in significant improvements over traditional approaches.

Details DOI

IJCAI Conference 1989 Conference Paper

Reconstructive Explanation: Explanation as Complex Problem Solving

Michael R. Wick
William B. Thompson

Existing explanation facilities are typically far more appropriate for knowledge engineers engaged in system maintenance than for endusers of the system. This is because the explanation is little more than a trace of the detailed problem-solving steps. An alternative approach recognizes that an effective explanation often needs to substantially reorganize the line of reasoning and bring to bear additional information to support the result. Explanation itself becomes a complex problem-solving process that depends not only on the line of reasoning, but also on additional knowledge of the domain. We present a new computational model of explanation and argue that it results in significant improvements over traditional approaches.

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