Artificial intelligence · 1980

XCON

An expert system that configures computer orders saves DEC about $25 million a year.

John McDermott's R1, later XCON, configured VAX computer orders at Digital Equipment Corporation using thousands of rules. Its savings sparked the commercial expert systems boom, with companies spending over a billion dollars a year on AI by the mid-1980s.

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

MYCIN 1972

What it led to 1

Second AI winter 1987

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