some comments on “the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated – expert systems research in...
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Some Comments on “The Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated – Expert
Systems Research in Accounting”
Daniel E. O’LearyUniversity of Southern California
© 2015
Overview
• My perspective - I am “Pro” AI• Sub-Disciplines of AI• “AI Renaissance”• Good news and bad news of “expert systems”• Gray et al. expert systems findings• Research methodologies• Life Cycle Models• Integration of AI into other Technologies• Summary
My Biased Perspective - I am “Pro” AI
• I am editor of Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management– Preceded by the Expert Systems Review (1987-1990)
• From 1997 - 2001 I was editor of IEEE Intelligent Systems• I am a senior editor or advisory board member on a number of AI-
based (“near AI”) editorial boards– IEEE Intelligent Systems Advisory Board– Knowledge and Information Systems (2002 – to-date) Senior Editor.– Decision Support Systems (2014 to date) Editorial Advisory Board
• I am on the editorial board of a number of AI-based journals– Expert Systems with Applications: An International Journal (1990 to-date); – Expert Systems: The Journal of Knowledge Engineering (2007-to-date); – International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (2005- to-date)
Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management
• Originally it was the section journal for what is now the “Strategic and Emerging Technologies Section”
• 23 Years of publishing AI and Accounting and Business Application papers
• Increasingly we get cool papers from computational economics and finance – Particle Swarm Optimization– Dynamic Fuzzy Approach to Risk– Self Organizing Maps and Risk– Multi-agent simulations
• Currently a call for papers on “Enterprise Ontologies and Semantic Models” (December 15)
There are many sub-disciplines and views of AI
• Expert Systems• Case-based reasoning• Certainty Factors• Bayes Nets• Genetic Algorithms• Neural Networks• Multiple Agent Systems• Semantic Web• Ontologies• Natural language processing• …
• AI and Knowledge Management
• AI and Continuous Monitoring
• AI and Big Data• AI and Twitter Mining• AI and Audit Analytics• AI and Internet of Things• AI and Question asking and
answering• …
AI is anything but dead…
• But it is arguable that classic accounting and auditing expert systems are dead
• Even more broadly, AIS researchers do not work on stand alone systems– In fact, there are hardly any accounting information
systems researchers building any kind of system or artifact
– Increasingly, researchers are turning to archival and behavioral
• Probably for some good reasons …
Good News and Bad News of Building an Expert System
• Good News– Seems relatively easy to
capture rules used in some decision making settings
– Seems easy to put likelihood or certainty factor estimates on rules
– Much knowledge is unstructured and we would like to structure
– Very seductive – to build a system that is an “expert”
• Bad News– Devil is in details, e.g., “if
sales are increasing …”• Systematic differences in the
words “increasing”
– Seems easy enough, yet few have done it well – many fundamental errors made
– Rules are structured and very fragile.
– Uncertainty is difficult– People are forgetting the
past lessonsWhat went wrong back at the ranch?
Gray et al. Findings
• Decreasing number of publications in Expert Systems in accounting, auditing and tax
• Decreasing number of dissertations in Expert Systems in accounting, auditing and tax
• Decreasing number of presentations in Expert Systems at AAA meetings
• Drill down …
Expert Systems Dissertations
Mature and Downgraded1999-on
It looks like it was pretty clear to Ph. D. students – or we got new Ph. D students.
Research Methodologies Vary by Discipline
• Design science – build and test artifacts– In computer science this is the dominant methodology.– Used to be the key AIS methodology.
• Behavioral – How does system use impact behavior?– In information systems this is a dominant methodology– Increasingly important in AIS.
• Archival – e.g., Event studies– In accounting, economics and finance, archival financial is the dominant
methodology.– Gaining substantial traction in AIS and some IS.
• Analytic/Mathematical Models– Useful in computer science and operations research, but seldom in
accounting
Gartner Hype Cycle (and others)“Imagine” AIS on a hype curve starting in 1970s or so
It is arguable that it is a natural progression for AIS researchers to move through the life cycle.
Maybe now AIS is on the Plateau of Productivity
… at least with many technologies.
“Gartner's hype cycle and information system research issues” IJAIS 2009
Retro-Fit “Expert Systems” to Hype Cycle
1988
1995
Technologies get embedded in other technologies
• Rarely see “pure” expert systems any more.• Expert systems and AI have been embedded
with other technologies.– Decision Support Systems– Conventional Systems– Statistics– Drill down …
Summary – Some Discussion Points
• AI and expert systems go through life cycles– There are many different AI technologies.– The way that most built Expert Systems had fundamental flaws
that are not easily fixed.– We are forgetting those problems and limitations
• AI is being integrated with many other technologies• The type of research that can be done depends on where
the technology is in the life cycle– AIS (IS) researchers seem to be opting out of design science
research for various reasons.– We can imagine AIS on a hype curve … and AIS has progressed
along the curve.
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