Artificial intelligence · 1972

MYCIN

An expert system that diagnoses blood infections about as well as specialists.

Edward Shortliffe's MYCIN used about 600 if-then rules with certainty factors to recommend antibiotics. In a blinded 1979 evaluation its choices were rated acceptable 65% of the time, on par with infectious disease experts. It was never used clinically but defined the rule-based expert system.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Dendral 1965

What it led to 2

XCON 1980
Bayesian networks 1985

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Training compute of notable AI models Source: Epoch AI, Notable AI Models (CC BY 4.0)

Computation per constant dollar, 1850-2006 Latest: 7.3B million units of computer power per 2006 $ (2003) Source: Nordhaus 2007, Two Centuries of Productivity Growth in Computing, J. Econ. Hist. 67(1), Table 6